An open letter to those accountable to Govanhill’s children
As the closure of the Queens Park glasshouse and the East Pollokshields Quad strips away the final scraps of community space, local parent Ben Kritikos issues a defiant message to those in power: Govanhill’s children are not a political afterthought, and its parents will no longer settle for the paltry largesse of charity.
by Ben Kritikos | Images by Laura Vroomen
The closure of the glasshouse at Queens Park was recently announced by Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC), who leased the building as a teaching facility and kept it open as a partially-public space. It was shortly afterwards announced in a Facebook post that the East Pollokshields Quad will also be closed to the public, as owners of a portion of the community space are asserting their property rights for the first time in decades.
For those of us with small children, the Quad is an essential public asset. Many children’s groups meet in the Quad, including the Woodcraft Folk, to which we belong. Young children need space away from car traffic, in a semi-enclosed space where they can use their imaginations, play, run around and get fresh air. Parents need the space too: semi-enclosed outdoor spaces provide an invaluable resource, since your kids can be relatively free with minimal risk to their safety.
Queens Park is an extension of our home and we know every nook and cranny like our own little flat. The glasshouse is the only place to use the toilet inside the park. There is no toilet low enough for a toddler or small child, nowhere to change nappies or clothes in the event of an accident, no sink low enough for them to wash their hands and the water is often scalding hot. This is par for the course. Even so, the glasshouse is a lifesaver for parents like me: an escape from sudden torrents of rain, a toilet in an emergency, a beautiful spot to eat lunch and let your kids burn off energy and engage in independent, open ended play – and an opportunity to sit down.
Image of Ben’s child standing in the once public Glasshouse provided by Ben
My kids love the plants and the fish, the wooden dolphin in the greenhouse, the hiding places in the bushes. Our kids rightly believe that these spaces belong to them; they don’t understand abstract concepts like ownership or the difference between public, private and “third” spaces.
Being parents of a three year old, on benefits and living with disabilities and no family support nearby, the closures of the glasshouse and the Quad profoundly affect my wife, my son and me. It also affects our neighbours and the whole community of parents in the area.
The old adage ‘It takes a village to raise a child’ is not just a folksy slogan but a mathematical fact. For this reason, we’ve banded together with several other families in too-small accommodation and with too-small incomes, an informal group of mostly foreign-born parents who don’t want to or cannot afford to send their kids to nursery full-time. We socialise together, support each other to combat loneliness, and share the oftentimes exhausting routine of keeping a small child entertained for a full day in all weather.
Each of our children regards each adult as their caregiver. They are my village and I could not raise my son without them. We found each other pushing buggies around Govanhill looking for something to do and found it was much easier together.
This is the story that any parent can tell you: nowhere to go that doesn’t require spending money you don’t have, nowhere to use the toilet, dirty toilets without facilities for children, nowhere to avoid litter and broken glass that might injure your child, nothing to do when it’s raining, walking up and down the pockmarked pavements, haunting every play park and library for countless hours trying to keep a toddler happy, to give them a nice childhood without means.
The scant few places you can bring a kid or group of kids in walking distance are often badly neglected or run by charities (and businesses with charitable status) who welcome the public in principle but sometimes do so in practice only grudgingly.
There is not a public garden on the Southside where I haven’t received icy stares, if not outright scolding, for having a group of small kids just being small kids. You are always cramping someone’s style and being reminded that kids are annoying. It’s not a question of whether society values children and childhood – society manifestly does not.
It feels like the last pathetic scraps are being stripped from parents’ hands – and children’s mouths – year on year. Where are we supposed to take our children? What are we supposed to do when they need the toilet or need to be changed? The seemingly never-ending enclosures of public spaces means we’ve come to rely on charity to provide essential services, but charities and other organisations doling out this largesse are either unable or unwilling to do so in the longer term, evidenced by the closure of the Quad and Queens Park Glasshouse, to name only the two most recent and local.
Event in the Glasshouse: Glasgow International Festival of Contemporary Art in May 2024 by Laura Vroomen
Every parent pounding the pavement week in, week out knows the feeling of cycling through the paltry selection of putatively “public” spaces. Children and parents are invoked in campaign slogans, until they aren’t, at which point they can be safely ignored. Children, after all, don’t vote or work or spend money. They are a constituency lacking representation.
Election seasons bring a barrage of big talk but the problem lies in the years between. Democracy cannot be measured with a box ticking exercise twice in a decade but must be substantiated by the concrete reality in the silent intervals. Who will advocate for children and low income parents once the election is over and no one is forced to do so by political calculus?
Not a single candidate, party, arm of government or publication has substantively earned our support, yet our support is perennially solicited with ever-diminishing promises, lowering expectations while the necessities of a life fully lived are outsourced to those who can make a profit providing a public utility.
The very idea that public spaces for parents and children are the remit of business or “charity” belies the fact that we should have access to these things as a right. Children cannot be expected to earn their rights; but you, the would-be elected’s, the well-remunerated directors of charities, the civic-minded dignitaries and journalists, are obliged to earn our support. You must answer to us. We don’t want charity; we want what is ours.
The neighbourhood is ours. Govanhill and the surrounding neighbourhoods belong as much to their children as they do to anyone – not by dint of property relations or political privilege but because this is what a neighbourhood is for, it is what makes a place a place.
The substance of democracy is the power of ordinary people to make decisions about their lives and the life of their community. I do not want to hear that you care about kids. I want to see it. Here are some reasonable ways you can prove it:
Child poverty is a disgrace – its elimination must be a priority. To accept tacitly that Govanhill’s children will live in poverty is to resign ourselves to moral impoverishment. Poverty and democracy are incompatible.
We want a variety of clean, accessible public spaces where parents and children can socialise.
We want clean public bathrooms that are accessible to children and people with disabilities within a short walking distance from anywhere in Govanhill.
We want streets and pavements that are designed and built considering children’s safety and the needs of elderly people and those with disabilities.
We want binding commitments that children will be considered when making decisions about housing and infrastructure, and that vital public services will receive sufficient funding, especially those that contribute to children’s flourishing.
We want the public discussion about the needs of children and parents to be made accessible and in terms commensurate with the diverse character of Govanhill and every neighbourhood in Scotland, regardless of the electoral map.
We want democratic accountability for children. You are answerable to us and to them. There must be consequences for failure.
We, the parents of Govanhill, will be watching you. The test of your mettle will be this: when the election is over, who will still be talking about the issues facing parents and children? Who will advocate for children outwith the election season, a constituency who cannot advocate for themselves?
Remember: Hell hath no fury like a scorned parent.
Yours,
Ben Kritikos
