This Dad Is Raising His Child in London And Tells You Exactly What That Means

In the last two years, I have seen two horrifying images of children – one of a Syrian boy dazed and bleeding in an ambulance and another of the lifeless body of 3-year old Alan Kurdi lying on a beach as the waves rushed in and lapped his face. In both instances, my first reaction was of shock, the second of anger, and a third of sadness (or something to that effect). I mean, what kind of a world do we live in where we cannot even protect our children; where wars don’t spare even the lives of innocent 3-year olds? Forget about giving them a good life, education or healthcare; we cannot even ensure their safety and lives to allow them to enjoy and appreciate this world we live in! Shocking, just plain shocking!

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In case you’re wondering about the sombre opening to this post, the reason is that I was asked the question about raising a child in London. While a difficult city in terms of pollution, population and cost of living, there are still worse places you could raise a child in. The biggest challenges that a London parent probably faces are those of (a) choice of a ‘good’ school; and (b) access to good and cheap healthcare (don’t even get me started on the NHS and the ‘services’ they offer). Maybe in this day and age of crazies, there is the slight worry about kidnapping and the odd instance of terrorism, but still, it hardly compares to the two disasters I mentioned above.

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