Several years ago a colleague told us about one of his friends, living in Wellington at the time. Circumstances had resulted in this friend raising two boys as a solo-parent. Once, one of his sons got a little lippy and told his father that he was not going to allow his father to discipline him any more. Apparently his teacher at school had been instructing the child more perfectly on the insidious and immoral practice of parents disciplining their children with spanking.
“OK,” said the father. “Go to your room and pack up all your gear.” When the son sought a reason, the father replied, “We are going around to see your teacher. I will drop you off. Since you prefer her way of raising children, she can raise you from now on.” Needless to say, nothing further was ever said on that subject by the child thenceforth.
Now, a decade further along the full weight of the law stands behind a child such as this. Whatever way you like to dress it up, the father would now be breaking the law and is a criminal in its eyes. The legal rights and protections of the disciplined child are now declared by the Crimes Act to have been traduced. So, whereas the story our colleague told was one of clever and wise parenting ten years ago, evincing a rich chuckle at the time, it now assumes a far more serious cast. And desperate times call for desperate measures.
Consider this. The Bradford/Key Law, proscribing spanking for purposes of discipline and correction as a criminal assault upon a child, is built upon a world view which gives children the identical rights in law enjoyed by adults. Laying aside all the emotive claptrap which proponents of the new law have purveyed, underneath the Bradford/Key Law lies this philosophical principle. Remove or reject the principle of equal legal rights for minors, and Section 59 has no philosophical or legal or grounding in justice.
What the Bradford/Key Law actually manifests, then, is an assault upon the principle and implicit rights that actually belong to the status of being a minor. It thrusts children into the legal status of adults, with the concomitant legal responsibilities. It consequently wreaks a grievous harm upon children, removing from them a fundamental principle of protection and care.
How then do parents cope? How can children be protected from the harm which the Bradford/Key Law inflicts? On the one hand, parents still have all the legal duties and responsibilities that rightly belong to dealing with and caring for a minor. On the other, the law has determined that the child is actually a legal adult. The brute contradiction in these two positions is what makes the Bradford/Key Law tear the fabric of family life apart .
There is no point in protecting children from this disastrous mess. It is the real world. We believe the best thing to do is to face children up to the reality as soon as possible. Ironically, the more you do this with children, the more mature they become. They need to face up to the law relatively quickly. Here is where the story of the Wellington father has a great deal of relevance.
In a time of war, when the “powers” come crashing in upon families, historically families have taken extraordinary measures in order to survive. One survival mechanism was to send children away, sometimes to the other side of the world, to get them out of harm's way. The threat of bombing or attack led parents voluntarily to make their children into orphans.
So, here is how we believe parents should consider helping their children face up to the new law. Firstly, when the kids are about five or six (that is, school age) it should be explained to them that they are living in a dangerous world—one in which the government believes they should be treated as if they were adults. This, of course, is terribly wrong. But it is the truth.
Secondly, explain to them how their mum and dad love their children so much that they are going to ignore the law, and will continue to discipline them diligently. (In our household, discipline—its rules, methods, and purposes are always openly talked about, objectified, and discussed. Then when discipline has to be applied, the kids understand and accept it positively.) But, at the same time, the children now have to be made aware that in our dangerous world this turns mum and dad into criminals. Therefore, kids, we do not talk to anyone about what happens in our family—especially teachers, but also playmates. This puts “stranger danger” into a whole new context.
As the children get older and assert themselves more forcefully, the risks and stakes go up a bit. If kids start threatening their parents with “dobbing” them in to the authorities, they need, once again, to be spoken to directly, plainly, and honestly. They need to be told that if at any point they do not want to be part of the household they can indeed opt out. They are legally adults and have such rights. In fact the government will take them over, as it were, and will provide new parents for them. The government agency is called CYFS. If the child no longer wants to be part of the family, the parents will get them to pack up their things, and will drop them off at the nearest CYFS office tomorrow.
Then, of course, a pretty frank description of what will happen should follow: the kinds of foster homes, how many they will go through, what CYFS “love” is really like, and so forth.
We acknowledge that such reality parenting is tough stuff—but in times of warfare, parents and families have always been willing to adopt such strong and extreme measures to ensure survival. The Bradford/Key Law is just one more exigency, requiring unusual and strong measures in order to survive.
This may sound extreme, but we believe it could well come to this. Consider, for example, the case of Tania—as documented by Family First.
CHILDREN REMOVEDOur advice would be to sit the daughter down and tell her quietly and firmly: “Oh, no, we won't. Let us tell you what will happen when we discipline you again, and you behave like you did. We will drop you off at CYFS, since you appear to love them so much, and they can find some new parents. Goodbye and good luck.” But, don't give the warning without carrying it out should the occasion arise.
13. Daughter (10) dobs mum to CYF after grounding
Auckland
November 2008
Two CYF workers arrived at Tania’s* home to say there was a complaint by her daughter (10) that mum had smacked her. Tania was distraught but said that they could talk to her daughter uninterrupted to determine if she was unsafe. The social workers simply wanted to remove her (but ironically they left Tania’s 8 year old at home.) Eventually they agreed that the daughter could stay the night with the godmother. The following day, the investigation found no basis for the complaint and that it had stemmed from Tania’s daughter and a friend being angry with mum for preventing her from attending the friend’s party. Mum and Dad are now feeling very powerless with their parenting. They say “every time someone gets told off in our home you feel like you will be told on, we are being held to ransom by this new law.” Their daughter has told them that if they discipline her “we’ll go through all this again.”
This is tough love in the brave new world inaugurated by the Bradford/Key Law. In the light of that mad world, it is a modest and reasonable proposal.
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