by Richard Morrissey, TCW
YESTERDAY, my wife and I met our two-day-old granddaughter – a tiny, fragile miracle reminding us how precious children are and how carefully they must be nurtured. Today, I read about Labour’s plan to roll out nationwide breakfast clubs, and the contrast struck me deeply.
On one hand, the intimate bond of family; on the other, the cold efficiency of state-run childcare. This isn’t just about scrambled eggs and toast. It’s about who gets to shape childhood: parents who cherish their children as irreplaceable individuals, or a system that views them as units to be managed.
Sir Keir Starmer’s policy is framed as ‘help’ for working parents, but it’s another step toward outsourcing the heart of family life. Like a ship leaving harbour just one degree off course, small shifts in parenting – who feeds a child, who shares their first moments of the day – compound over time. A ‘convenient’ breakfast club today becomes a generational drift toward disconnected families tomorrow.
Over 33 years, I’ve cooked roughly 30,000 meals for my family. These weren’t transactional events: they were the bedrock of our relationships. You could call it ‘the soul of the family meal’. Research confirms what I’ve witnessed first-hand: