A kid on a merry-go-round she can’t get off!

If I see that sixteen-year-old Scandinavian school-kid, Greta Thunberg, scowling at me from the pages of my morning newspapers again, whilst munching on my Cornflakes, I’m going to scream! Barely out of nappies, this poor girl is clearly being manipulated by the media, parents, and stars Leonardo DiCaprio, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, this week. She is sixteen for goodness sake, and the first indication that she is being manipulated, is the ‘media image’ we all have of her, that of a petulant, angry, scowling, frustrated, pigtailed, know-it-all. The grand-daughter of a prominent actor and film director Olof Thunberg, her parents are Opera singer, cabaret artist, and former Eurovision Song Contestant Malena Ernman, and actor Svante Thunberg, so she has never lived a ‘normal’ day in her life being born into such a talent pool. This is a kid who has never known a ‘normal,’ genuine childhood, being the daughter of ‘stars,’ and probably also never known genuine familial love that is manifest as much in saying “No,” when it’s appropriate, as saying “Yes” all the time. On top of that, she has health issues, being diagnosed with Asbergers Syndrome, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and selective mutism, a social anxiety disorder. This is not an emerging profile of your normal, run-of-the-mill teenager. It is the developing, tragic, story of a young girl with significant health and social behavioural issues that are either swept under the carpet, or manipulated (there’s that word again), by those disingenuous enough to benefit from a self-perpetuating media frenzy. At the age of eleven, she campaigned against her parents’ lifestyles and, get this, limited her mother’s operatic career by insisting she stop flying, forcing her to accept less roles as a consequence. Talk about the tail wagging the dog! And people are lapping this all up! God give me strength: Schwarzenegger even said this week, “It was fantastic to see my friend and one of my heroes @GretaThunberg last week and go on a bike ride around Santa Monica together….” Really? The 72 year-old Terminator has a 16-year-old friend? I guess botox will do that to you Arnie. But back to the child activist, and I mentioned that she hasn’t had a ‘normal’ life. According to Guardian newspaper, Thunberg began organising school climate strikes just last year, and still of school age, her father insists that he doesn’t like her missing school, but, “I respect that she wants to make a stand. She can either sit at home and be really unhappy, or protest, and be happy.” Really? What kind of parenting is that? It’s Scandinavian pseudo-liberalism is what it is. It’s opt-out parenting is what it is. It’s a disgrace! Look at your kids. Would you be as amenable as he, if your kid told you the same? No way Jose. Yet, here she is, sixteen-years-old, and taking a sabbatical from school, to “travel and meet people from the climate movement.” Aaaah, then this would be the same ‘climate movement, under Bo Thoren, a prominent Swedish activist who ‘discovered’ Thunberg, and encouraged her to ‘strike’ for climate change. Thunberg couldn’t get any of her school friends interested so instead, took three weeks off school and protested alone on the steps of the Swedish Riksdag, or Parliament House, and so the story began, she was ‘picked-up,’ as they say, by a social media group under activist Ingmar Rentzhog, who has since been accused of “financially profiting from Thunberg.” Oh my, what a surprise. I’ve only touched the surface here, but we do have a choice: Accept Thunberg as a legitimate eco-warrior, or as the product of lazy, delinquent parenting, an excessively liberal society. Me, I would be more convinced of the kid’s eco-credentials if I saw her pick up some litter, and put it in a bin, because, well, talk is very, very cheap.