In BIG BABIES OR WHY CAN’T WE JUST GROW UP?, now available in paperback, writer and broadaster Michael Bywater skewers the infantile nature of our contemporary society. Examining advertising, music, politics, the health industry, education, religion, fashion, sports and publishing, Bywater makes a fierce and often hilarious case that, in almost every area of our lives, we are inexorably becoming Big Babies. He recently talked to with Kindah Mardam Bey from A n E Vibe for a brilliant interview:

“Why are people not educating their children on manners? I wonder if this has something to do with the Baby Boom generation wanting to be liked by their children. We want them to think of us as their friends. I never thought of my parents as friends. They are supposed to be you parents. Now the lengths that children have to go to declare their independence from the parents is ridiculous. It was much easier when parents were stuffy; all you had to do to rebel was listen to rock music. Now parents are listening to the same music, know the bands names, are usurping teenage attire, parents who really like Eminem, and the kids are thinking ‘your not supposed to like Eminem, that’s the whole point of it!’ So what lengths do kids have to go to rebel, because we all have to rebel, it’s the natural course of things.”

Click here for the interview