Children are living in poverty in New
Zealand. It is a problem. Politicians put capital letters on the words child
and poverty and make the problem a minor political issue. The issue is put to
the electorate. People vote, nothing is solved.
Our nation prides itself on being
progressive and tolerant. The attitudes at the heart of our nation that make
people tolerant and progressive are the same attitudes that allow New
Zealanders to tolerate children living in poverty and secretly want to progress
away from it towards a richer economic future.
Children have high dependency needs which
often impact on the freedom of adults. This is not new. What is new in our
society at every level is a thirst for freedom of the individual at all costs. It
spawns all manner of greedy, pleasure seeking, ego-centric behaviour in adults
which trickles down into the world of children. A child may go to school hungry
because of this, another may go with every possible advantage money can buy but
both may go to school unloved and unhappy, unable to learn. Something in our
nation’s psyche needs to give if people really want to improve the lot of
children in this country.
Parents who claim to love their unhappy
children have a glaring lack of knowledge about the nature and social
responsibility of parental love. Governments and money cannot fix this, they
have to work with it. Tolerance and progress are gods in New Zealand. These
leave little room for the Christian God, a God whose son Jesus Christ taught
that self-sacrifice is at the heart of all love and that freedom and happiness for
all is not found in selfish behaviour but in each and everyone of us
endeavouring to love others more than we love our ego.
Sue Jones
Sue is a regular writer for Catholic publications in N.Z and is connected to the Wairoa parish of St. Peters and St. Mary's in Gisborne.
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