I ended my last post with a provocative promise to reveal how we had spent the second half of my last week off. I have put off doing so, not because I'm a bit lazy, but because I have for the last month been struggling with an ethical dilemma. Honest.
For the truth is, my wife and I decided to expose our daughters to some admirably charitable activity. The dilemma arose from my concern that any such altruism is undermined if you start showing off about it afterwards. One has to question the motives of someone who is too keen to inform you of their generosity. Let's call this the Bono effect. Are the beneficiaries of such charity mere pawns in a vanity project? Does it even matter?
Ultimately, I have skirted around this debate by deciding that it's all fine a month later. So I can proudly describe to you the excellent examples we set for our children. Our first thought was to donate some blankets to the local homeless shelter. But, upon taking the sensible precaution of phoning them first (at risk of evoking the Bono effect), we were informed that cold, hard cash would be more useful. They're the experts, so we obliged. We signed up as organ donors. I had already done this years ago, but I did it again to be on the safe side. I hope I haven't double-booked my kidneys.
We also went to give blood. It was my first time, and our naive failure to book appointments meant that we endured a rather long wait at the temporary blood-letting venue: a somewhat evangelical church hall. The only reading material to hand was a bit on the Goddy side, so it was a struggle to entertain the girls without subjecting them to a kind of subliminal indoctrination. The resulting anxiety left me quite fearful of what was, to be fair, a bloody massive needle, by the time it was eased into my arm. I can honestly say though that it was completely painless, and over remarkably quickly. Also, the cliche about the glow of pride experienced by blood donors is surprisingly accurate, aided in my case by the handy visual aid which was the astonishing bruise that spread across my entire forearm over the following week. I showed that bruise to a lot of people. Bono effect be damned. I sort of miss it now. Horrific lesions aside, I strongly urge anyone who can give blood to do so. But make an appointment first.
So far, so socially responsible. But our daughters had really just seen us make some phone calls and sit in a church hall. For a more tangible demonstration of the joy of benevolence, we made up some bags of gifts: a chocolate bar, a lottery scratchcard, a stamped postcard (with a note suggesting that the recipient send a message to a loved one) and one or two other things whose exact natures I cannot recall. But they were definitely really charming. We went to a local town, whose identity I shall not disclose, and simply had a nice wander about, discarding our joyful offerings in unassuming public places. I think our daughters enjoyed themselves, and hopefully they picked up some sense of the day's purpose. I certainly experienced fulfillment, although I did feel a bit naughty: the guilt of a vigilante? My wife and I grew quite paranoid about a suspicious gentleman loitering in one park where we were spreading our love. We convinced ourselves that he was a local councillor, come to tell us off for failing to be nice through the proper channels. But it was ok: he was just a weird man hanging around in a park.
And so ended our days of commendable charity. I'm not really sure how effective it all was as a lesson in generosity for our children. I'm sure they've got a bit better at sharing with each other since. Can this be a coincidence?
