Scoop has an Ethical Paywall
License needed for work use Register

Gordon Campbell | Parliament TV | Parliament Today | News Video | Crime | Employers | Housing | Immigration | Legal | Local Govt. | Maori | Welfare | Unions | Youth | Search

 

Child Tragedies Needn't Be Inevitable


Child Tragedies Needn't Be Inevitable

By Lindsay Mitchell

Child tragedies hit hard. People instinctively, desperately seek a source of blame. They grasp at some collective, mendable cause and sometimes paradoxically come up with what they call "the culture of individualism" . People today only care about themselves, they say.

It's true that the the baby-boomers, and all who followed, don't have the sense of obligation or belonging to society that their parents did. And why would they? Government has gradually taken over most of the caring functions family and voluntary institutions used to fulfil. In doing so they have not only undermined people's commitment to broader relationships but to their personal relationships and their children and that is the real problem; being individuals and being self-interested is not. Voluntary transactions on a social or commercial level always deliver two people who have looked to their own gain but come out mutually advantaged. That is fact.

But when it comes to pitching self-interest against your child's they lose because they have no voice. Something occurs which they were not an acquiescing party to.

The 60's and 70's saw an emergence of so much 'freedom' that we baby-boomers couldn't distinguish real freedom from phoney freedom. We learnt life's lessons eventually, sometimes tortuously. In some cases the penny dropped - in others it didn't and it never will.

If you exercise your every urge without restraint you will never be free from a nagging conscience. In indulging every whim and craving, you can hurt others. In cutting your personal losses and running, you might buy a temporary reprieve but eventually those demons have to be faced. This type of lifestyle is clearly now commonplace.

Advertisement - scroll to continue reading

Are you getting our free newsletter?

Subscribe to Scoop’s 'The Catch Up' our free weekly newsletter sent to your inbox every Monday with stories from across our network.

"The grass is always greener and that's where I'm headed," applies to jobs, homes, lifestyles but most damagingly, to relationships. The damage is lessened in the absence of children but the presence of children doesn't lessen the phenomena. People walk. People walk away from partners just as readily, it seems, whether or not there are children in the picture.

Couples with kids split every day. Nobody knows exactly how many but the yearly number of DPB applications is around 43,000. Some will already be mums alone re-applying, some first-time mums without a partner. Even so, a good number will result from separations.

As a baby-boomer I confess to spending my single years hankering after greener grass. And I seemed to wade through lot of it before it occurred to me that I was subconsciously, literally living by a less than useful maxim. Worse. I might not have been green enough grass for someone else - I might be the problem. 'Happily ever after' was a myth and life is indeed a rollercoaster on which you relish the highs and manage the lows. It's the contrast that provides the essence. Fortunately for me this revelation happened before children.

When they arrive they put additional strain on a relationship. Deny this at your peril. BUT they take your relationship into a different realm. Watching the blend of parental characteristics merging with a brand new soul is awesome. Because of the enormous stake in our inter- dependence with them, they deserve both parent's paramount, unconditional commitment.

Whenever a child tragedy strikes in New Zealand, there are calls for the government to spend more, for CYFS to get their act together, for communities to 'own the problem' and for authorities to come down hard on the perpetrator to send a signal to society that violence isn't acceptable.

None of this would be necessary if, as individuals, we put our children first.

Lindsay Mitchell is a Research Fellow for the Institute for Liberal Values (www.liberalvalues.org.nz) and specialises in issues relating to welfare policy.

© Scoop Media

Advertisement - scroll to continue reading
 
 
 
Parliament Headlines | Politics Headlines | Regional Headlines

Gordon Campbell: On The New Government’s Policies Of Yesteryear

Winston Peters is routinely described as the kingmaker who decides whether the centre right or the centre-left has a turn at running this country. He also plays a less heralded, but equally important role as the scapegoat who can be blamed for killing taxes that his senior partners never much wanted in the first place. Neither Ardern nor Robertson for example, really wanted a capital gains tax, for fear of Labour copping the “tax and spend“ label they ended up being saddled with anyway. Usefully though, they could tell the party faithful it was wicked old Winston who killed the CGT... More


 
 

Public Housing Futures: Christmas Coming Early For Landlords With An Extra $900 Million Present From NACT

New CTU analysis of the National & ACT coalition agreement has shown the cost of returning interest deductibility to landlords is an extra $900 million on top of National’s original proposal. This is because it is going to be implemented earlier and faster, including retrospective rebates from April 2023... More

Green Party: Petition To Save Oil & Gas Ban

“The new Government’s plan to expand oil and gas exploration is as dangerous as it is unscientific. Whatever you think about the new government, there is simply no mandate to trash the climate. We need to come together to stop them,” says James Shaw... More

PSA: MFAT Must Reverse Decision To Remove Te Reo

MFAT's decision to remove te reo from correspondence before new Ministers are sworn in risks undermining the important progress the public sector has made in honouring te Tiriti. "We are very disappointed in what is a backward decision - it simply seems to be a Ministry bowing to the racist rhetoric we heard on the election campaign trail," says Marcia Puru... More

 
 
 
 
 
 

LATEST HEADLINES

  • PARLIAMENT
  • POLITICS
  • REGIONAL
 
 

InfoPages News Channels


 
 
 
 

Join Our Free Newsletter

Subscribe to Scoop’s 'The Catch Up' our free weekly newsletter sent to your inbox every Monday with stories from across our network.