Английский язык. Цыбина Е.А - 14 стр.

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14
• The British and boarding schools
• A national lack of tenderness
• Parents’ contribution to football violence
• Children in Britain and Italy
a) And yet every day the evidence before me in the streets and in the newspapers
suggest that they are unusual. Where is the warmth and tenderness between adults
and children which is so prevalent in my native Italy, among all classes and types of
people? Is this the famous British reserve?
b) And their, children certainly look as if they bear the brunt of this national
characteristic. In my experience, children thrive on tenderness. I have looked, but
there certainly does not seem to be a lot of it among the British. Perhaps in private
they are warm and affectionate parents, but in public they seem to go to extraordinary
lengths to hide it.
c) It could almost be called the English disease. It seems almost impossible to turn on
the television without some new crime toeing reported. Of course, there are similar
horror stories in other countries, including Italy, but one does not hear about them
with such appalling regularity. To what extent, I wonder, is football hooliganism the
result of bad parenting?
d) Not only are they not shunned, but seats are proffered, doors smilingly held open
for pram-pushing mothers and tables miraculously appear in crowded restaurants.
Why is it that children are so unwelcome – and so rarely seen – in restaurants here?
e) In the course of our travels, my husband and I have often met British diplomats
and foreign correspondents who, between gulps of pink gin at one party or another,
would bewail the departure of their eight-year-old child, usually a son. Why were
these distressed parents sending their children away? ‘It’s a beastly family tradition ...
a high standard of education ... blah blah blah.’ And if they have to go, why on earth
when they are-only eight? Of course some children like it. But what happens when
children hate it? From countless melancholic memoirs, biographies and novels it
seems that when it comes to tradition children have to do what they are told.
f) What kept us going was the love and support of family and friends. There was
always that feeling of tenderness which I so often find lacking
over here.
5. Complete the following sentences.
a) The writer comes from ___.
b) The British ‘national characteristic’ is.
c) The ‘English disease’ is ____.
d) The writer had a very ____ childhood.
e) She thinks that being a bad parent can lead to.
6. Answer the following questions.
According to the writer, what is the British attitude to children in restaurants?

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