I knew I was old, but a hippy? Me? Surely not

GIVE ME A BREAK:I WAS chattering away to Matt Cooper on The Last Word about my desire to start a slow communication movement, or maybe even a Slow Communication Day where we'd be mobile/Twitter/broadband free and talk to real people in real time, when a listener texted: "Get the old hippy off!"

What a wake-up call, even though it was 6pm. I hadn’t realised I was an old hippy. Hearing this was like being told you’re bald when you thought that lock of hair in front hid it, or seeing yourself on TV and realising that the camera really does put on 50 pounds, or being told by a colleague that they’ve been nominated to ask you to do something about your bad breath.

How was I supposed to know I was an old hippy? I knew I was old, but a hippy? Moi? Martin Luther King was my childhood hero; I participated in the march on Washington against the Vietnam War wearing bell-bottoms and soft suede Indian moccasins; I tried to save whales; I survived the sexual revolution (and would gladly survive it again if given half the chance) and I feed the family lentil and vegetable stew a couple of times a week but that’s just because it’s nutritious, economical and tastes good – does that really make me a hippy?

I like walking in bare feet in the grass and in the sand, probably another bad sign, but it’s a free pleasure.

I believe my humanity is partly dependent on my right to think freely, away from interruption from various media and commercial influences for a couple of hours a day (usually when I awaken, stressed out, at 4am).

As a parent, I’ve never imposed rules, in favour of discussion and individual decision-making, with the result that my kids are more like Edina’s perpetually appalled daughter Saffy in Absolutely Fabulous than they are like me when I was their age.

We were watching TV3 the other night, Addicted to Tanning, which did not forewarn as that there would be full-frontal nudity, exhibitionism, crotch baring and even a brief, mild lesbian sex act. "Yuck! Gross!" Cue hiding faces in the sofa cushions. It was the kids who wanted to write in to complain, not me. Sexual exploitation, particularly of teenagers who think they need to dress as "hoes" – the kids' word, not mine – is one thing that really makes my kids angry.

After Matt Cooper, I asked my wise middle child, “Am I an old hippy?” And she laughed and said, “Absolutely not.” But what seemed a compliment at first, proved to be a bolt of lightning. “Why not?” I asked her. “You don’t believe in anything.”

Two wake-up calls in one evening are a lot for anyone to deal with, so here I am trying to figure out the implications of her statement. I used to be the sort of person who believed in so much that I was occasionally accused of being preachy. I even got the reputation of misery correspondent in this newspaper for at least a decade. So many things have made me angry over the past 25 years. Our appalling mental health service, forced adoption, domestic abuse, inadequate childcare policy, lack of support for carers, the condemning of so many single parents to poverty, the refusal to pay anything but lip service to kids with special needs, the underfunded education system, isolation of the elderly in poverty, the exploitation by the wealthy 5 per cent of the 95 per cent. I could go on, but I’d only depress myself, and you.

And despite all my good works and research and objective reporting as a journalist, did anything change? I don’t know. You tell me, but things are looking pretty bad at the moment. And why? Blinded by the “I’m all right Jack” mentality of the late 1990s to late noughties, we didn’t believe in anything. “There’s a lot that I really believe in, things I tried to make a difference in for many, many years, and it didn’t seem to make a difference,” I told my daughter. “That’s a useless attitude,” she said.

Yeah, I know.

Among other things, my kids are terrified and angry about global warming, the extinction of many forms of wildlife and plants, cataclysmic natural events, inequality, terrorism, more war and not being able to afford third level, if higher fees are introduced. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if they were to become campaigners of one kind or another.

If they do, all the intrusive media instruments I gave out about will be there to spur them on – blogging, texting, twittering, etc – which is a good thing, as long as these sources are objective and tell the truth, or as close to it as they can get.

Oh yeah, I remind my daughter, I’ve spent 25 years working for a newspaper that believes in objectivity and independence in journalism and social justice.

“But it’s just your job,” she says.

Yeah, just my job. Oh well. It’s over to you, kids (until I get my second wind and become a Grey Panther). This old hippy got her comeuppance last week, at any rate.