Yorkshire Shepherdess Amanda Owen wrong over ‘snowflake generation’ – Yorkshire Post Letters

WELL said Christa Ackroyd (“Not all children’s lives in the country are an idyll, Amanda”, The Yorkshire Post, April 10) for calling out Amanda Owen for crass comments on the ‘snowflake generation’.

Who does she think she is and more importantly to whom does she refer? The climate activist Greta Thunberg; maybe Malala Yousafzai who survived a Taliban assassination attempt and at the age of 17 became the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize?

Or what about ‘ordinary’ kids, some extremely young, who through no fault of their own have become carers for ill and disabled parents, a role they take on with grace and fortitude, foregoing the carefree childhood which Amanda Owen’s children are fortunate to enjoy?

I’m not a fan of Our Yorkshire Farm; there’s something about the whole Yorkshire Shepherdess brand which has me reaching for the red button quicker than you can say black denim mini skirt, off the shoulder Bardot-style top and artfully arranged windswept locks.

To digress for a moment, can’t some personal shopper, starved of work for the last 12 months, style her a new look for a modest fee? Maybe Amanda could chuck in a few lamb chops as an extra inducement. However, my serious issue is with her having nine children which is six or seven too many for a planet struggling to feed nearly eight billion people, and cope with the carbon footprint each and every one of us places on it.

Her attitude to contraception is “to go with the flow” – that’s feckless to you and me – and it’s time we stopped admiring her for doing so. I fail to understand why so many people, otherwise sane and intelligent, adopt such a misty-eyed demeanour at the mention of her name as they simper “she’s got nine children, you know”.

If you were to take Amanda Owen – if only – and place her in an inner-city tower block, then I guarantee such indulgence would immediately evaporate, replaced by steely-eyed mutterings about benefits and over-breeding.

Amanda Owen and her husband are undoubtedly hard-working business folk and they are, of course, perfectly at liberty to adopt a parenting style that they believe in, including not attending school parents’ evenings. As for giving up on the home schooling in lockdown after a few days, well, she would, wouldn’t she? Why distract her home-grown tribe of farm labourers with education? That’s something only snowflakes think is important.

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