Wednesday, July 22, 2009

AS A CULTURE HOW DO WE CARE ABOUT OUR CHILDREN?

In 1984 I was the R & D supervisor on the Safe Playing Programme - a govt funded research programme based at the University of Waikato. Important resources for better parenting / child safety education etc etc were all there at the Programme ready to deploy nationally and evolve for the care and protection of our children - our future.

25years ago successful pilot programmes had already been run in Hamilton, Tauranga, Rotorua and Tokoroa - this at a time when our pitiful world ranking in child safety related issues were marginally better in some respects than they are today - a quarter of a century later!

What happened then? Nothing happened; because votes had already been won, because official consciences had been salved by the fact that 'something had been done', the programme funding was slowly withdrawn and the research was subsequently collected up put in boxes, shipped to Wellington and stored in a damp basement under Pearce House. A few years later, when it had all slipped from the public consciousness, it was dragged out again - to be taken to a dump in Lower Hutt and burnt.

This demonstrates our interest as a culture in child safety and good parenting. 25yrs later, with another two decades of a continuously deplorable record behind us, we strut about as if so little is wrong with the wellbeing of our children that we have the time to debate our right, or lack thereof, to beat our children as if this were, in the circumstances, a world shattering issue. It disgusts me as do the individuals behind this 'people's referendum' and, even more so, the corrupt 'public servant' who signed off on this $9million fiasco.

The so called "Anti Smacking Law", the issue at the centre of this ego driven trivia is a red herring. The fact that such a legally innocuous law, proven as such by the fact that it has worked pretty much as intended for the past two years, has provoked such a furore shows just how much trouble our children are really in.

VOTE YES!

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