The response to the latest execrable outrage from the godawful nanny State has been swift and ferocious. Social media is lit up in fury and disbelief, and no wonder.
Grandparents are the best, and this wholly misconceived and distinctly awful public service message from the idiotic government of Ireland suggesting a consent form is required before a hug can be bestowed by your kindly Gran deserves every bit of the kicking its getting.
Here’s Mamó and Daideó – or granny and grandad, whatever you are having yourself – at the door, all smiles and good humour and hugs. So far, so familiar. Grandparents, as many commentators noted tonight, are a fundamental part of Irish family life, and long may that last.
But then things get weird: and its my view that what’s upsetting people is the unspoken inference that the natural affection of these dotey older people is somehow questionable, with all the implications that might carry.
‘I mean, look at them, that awful older generation’, this bullshit advert is telling us with all the usual subtlety of the perennially superior. There they go again, those unsophisticated boomers foisting their beastly slobbering hugs on long-suffering teenagers without so much as a thought for their discomfort and their ….. what exactly? Their peace of mind? Their safety?
The camera goes close-up just to make sure the viewer gets the message: Granny with her awful wobbly lips coming at you and Grandad right behind her, getting into your space with his cap and too-wide smile.
Don’t they realise that consent is required before lavishing their warmth and affection? Apparently, they are too ignorant and backward to understand children by themselves without an expensive ad from the state – even though they have likely reared their own kids and managed it all by themselves without the intervention of the scariest words in the English language: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
Contrary to the producers of this latest insult, Grandparents aren’t stupid. They can read their grandkids better than some 25-year old marketing graduate. They already know some children aren’t tactile and like their space. They understand boundaries – and if they don’t, parents can have a word. What they don’t need is a lecture on bodily autonomy with dubious inferences from a State department with too much of our money to spend.
By the way, it’s all the more weird, isn’t it, when we’ve heard for decades that what was wrong with that generation was that they were cold and repressed and incapable of showing affection. Now, it seems, the real issue all along is that they are incapable of restraining themselves when it comes to hugs and probably kisses and other questionable behaviour like reading stories and dangling babies on their knees. A visit from Tusla is probably triggered by a cuddle I suppose.
Thank God my generation benefitted from those precious, warm, priceless interactions with our grandparents without them feeling the needed the approval of some bumptious State authority.
As did my own children who were lucky enough to grow up with all four lovely grandparents and have an abundance of memories of the very unique affection those relationships bring: not just not the kindness and the warmth and the unconditional love – but the wisdom and the very special allyship when the chips are down.
Apart from just how downright insulting the advert is, its also seriously misplaced. Of all the problems facing our kids, affection from the people who love them really, really isn’t anywhere in the top 100.
Grandparents are clueless about consent? Really? Rates of sexual assault and rape have gone through the roof since my parents were young. Their generation isn’t driving the pressing problem we currently need to face up to. But the State wants them to feel awkward and uncomfortable and sort of ashamed anyway.
The website the narrator of this abysmal message references, We-consent.ie, deals with serious and important issues, such as sexual assault and consent (though 20 years of government messaging relying on consent alone doesn’t seem to have improved things) but this ad is actually hideous.
As ever, the State takes us at best for fools, and at worst for malign, terrible, untrustworthy creatures whose behaviour must be tracked and modified by those who think they know better. And, as ever, they continue to reach into our pockets to pay for the lecture.
As filmmaker Terry McMahon noted, everything about this garbage was signed off – from the idea, to its execution, and then the finished product. And as David Mullins said, “one of the agencies sponsoring this absurd bullshit is Cuan. They gave the National Women’s Council €30k in 2025. This commercial has the ideological fingerprints of the NWCI all over it”.
The drubbing these people got in the 2024 referendums when the people gave them two historic NO votes and told them to stop trying to interfere and social engineer families is just forgotten apparently. And so we’re getting another bullshit message from the Government of Ireland. Said bullshit deserves everyone of the kicks in the pants currently being delivered online.
None of this is to make light of the awful things happening in the world. Teenagers smashing each other – and other innocent people – to bits on the motorways. Children being burned to death in petrol-bombed homes. Girls being sexually assaulted by grooming gangs while Tusla loses kids left, right and centre. Teens watching porn and inflicting terrible harm. Anxiety and depression rates through the roof. Suicide a constant worry for parents. Graduates can’t get jobs. No-one can buy a home. The country is awash with foreign workers while our young people emigrate.
It’s enough to make you want a hug. From your Mamó or your Daideó. They give the best hugs in the world. Don’t listen to the lunatics.