No Room For Failure
A colloquial description for "taking responsibility" is that there is a soul to damn and a butt to kick if things go wrong.
In the endless, recurring debate over child welfare in New Zealand Maori are sadly over represented in the statistics. Maori leaders and spokespeople appear to want two fundamental changes: they want Maori to have a far bigger say in how Maori children are looked after and raised. Secondly, they want a racial division in New Zealand such that most Maori children will end up being raised by Maori--whether the birth parents or, secondly, the extended family of the child, or, if that fails, the tribe, or, if that were to fail, Maori in general, and only then, when all that has failed, will Maori tolerate a Maori child being raised by someone else from a non-Maori race. Even then a Maori child being placed in a non-Maori household does not sit well at all.
This arrangement does not seem right. Nor is it something to which other racial or cultural groups in the country appear to be bound. If a Korean child, for example, needs to be placed in a family the placement selection process appears far more colour-blind than the Maori process. Insofar as racism is fundamentally perverse, this does not seem kosher at all.
MP Judith Collins has a more straight forward approach: make sure you do no harm--and if you do, you need to take responsibility and be held accountable.
Showing posts with label Parenting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Parenting. Show all posts
Wednesday, 17 July 2019
Monday, 24 September 2018
Desperately Seeking Scapegoats
Indulgent Parents
Modern psycho-babble demands that we surround our children with "positive" messages. "You are a wonderful child. If anything bad happens to you, it's not your fault. We are telling you this now, in advance, so that you will be surrounded by a self-image of relentless positivity. It's the least that you deserve."
Whatever happened, one innocently asks, to the duty to warn the young of the dangers that lie ahead, of good and bad choices? No, never. How can children ever grow up into wonderful human beings if doubts are cast upon the inevitable triumph of gooey, sweet goodness. Such destructive negativity. Tut. Tut. Tut.
Some parents are up in arms over one school principal's "tough love" approach to unacceptable behaviour--particularly truancy. For our money, Principal Crawford stands out as a much needed, welcome truth teller. When you see a child at the top of a sheer cliff skipping along, the righteous person shouts at them, warning them of their danger. But, apparently, there are more than a few who, upon seeing such a child, will clap and cheer, giving lots of "positivity" and "affirmation" and "support" assuring the child they are a wunnerful, wunnerful dancer and that their future is bright and red-rosy.
Let us be clear. Those kinds of parents are the child's worst enemy. They represent the serpent's hiss. Not so in the case of Principal Crawford:
Thursday, 15 December 2016
Militant Statism Takes Form in Ontario, Canada
Canadian Law Erases Moms And Dads From State Documents
The Federalist
Nobody has a mother or a father, according to a certain Bill 28 recently passed in the legislature of Ontario, Canada. Got that? The law’s official title is: “An Act to amend the Children’s Law Reform Act, the Vital Statistics Act and various other Acts respecting parentage and related registrations.”
Basically, the law scrubs the words “mother” and “father” from documents, and replaces them with the neutered term “parent.” The law also raises the number of legal parents to as many as four per child. In other words, the government of Ontario will cease to legally recognize the natural origins of any of its citizens.
If you live in Ontario, you now have no right for the state to recognize you as either a mother or a father to your child, biological or otherwise. Likewise, no child there has the right to a legally recognized biological mother or father. Recognizing the relationship is now the sole prerogative of the state.
As with all bad legislation that cannot survive any real scrutiny, proponents of Bill 28 pushed it through fast and furiously and with a good deal of subterfuge and manipulation.
Reduces Children To Chattels
Stella MorabitoThe Federalist
Nobody has a mother or a father, according to a certain Bill 28 recently passed in the legislature of Ontario, Canada. Got that? The law’s official title is: “An Act to amend the Children’s Law Reform Act, the Vital Statistics Act and various other Acts respecting parentage and related registrations.”
Basically, the law scrubs the words “mother” and “father” from documents, and replaces them with the neutered term “parent.” The law also raises the number of legal parents to as many as four per child. In other words, the government of Ontario will cease to legally recognize the natural origins of any of its citizens.
If you live in Ontario, you now have no right for the state to recognize you as either a mother or a father to your child, biological or otherwise. Likewise, no child there has the right to a legally recognized biological mother or father. Recognizing the relationship is now the sole prerogative of the state.
As with all bad legislation that cannot survive any real scrutiny, proponents of Bill 28 pushed it through fast and furiously and with a good deal of subterfuge and manipulation.
Friday, 29 July 2016
One-Legged Solutions
The Maori Sole-Parent Problem
Allow us to use racial and ethnic categories for a new minutes. It is generally known that Maori have substantial problems and issues. But we forget, or overlook the size and scale of the problem. Then, every so often, it shows forth once again in startling, appalling relief.
Here is a vignette which we came across the other day: a breakdown by ethnicity of Sole Parents receiving taxpayer (government) welfare in New Zealand.
The first, expected, characteristic is that the Sole Parent category in the table is overwhelmingly female. No surprises there.
But when broken down by ethnicity, we find a startling bit of data: there are nearly 60 percent more Maori women on the Sole Parent benefit, than NZ European women. In June 2016, there were 31,040 Maori women receiving the Sole Parent benefit, compared to 19,753 NZ Europeans. Yet Maori represent only 15 percent of the entire NZ population. Of the 60,000 women on Sole Parent benefits, half of them are Maori.
Allow us to use racial and ethnic categories for a new minutes. It is generally known that Maori have substantial problems and issues. But we forget, or overlook the size and scale of the problem. Then, every so often, it shows forth once again in startling, appalling relief.
Here is a vignette which we came across the other day: a breakdown by ethnicity of Sole Parents receiving taxpayer (government) welfare in New Zealand.
The first, expected, characteristic is that the Sole Parent category in the table is overwhelmingly female. No surprises there.
But when broken down by ethnicity, we find a startling bit of data: there are nearly 60 percent more Maori women on the Sole Parent benefit, than NZ European women. In June 2016, there were 31,040 Maori women receiving the Sole Parent benefit, compared to 19,753 NZ Europeans. Yet Maori represent only 15 percent of the entire NZ population. Of the 60,000 women on Sole Parent benefits, half of them are Maori.
Tuesday, 27 October 2015
Millennial Entitlement and Self-Love
You Need to be Awesome
We penned a piece recently on inflated expectations of Millennials when it comes to occupations and jobs. Oftentimes the expectations are so huge, their possessors make themselves virtually unemployable. David French, writing in National Review Online adds his perspective on the same topic.
We penned a piece recently on inflated expectations of Millennials when it comes to occupations and jobs. Oftentimes the expectations are so huge, their possessors make themselves virtually unemployable. David French, writing in National Review Online adds his perspective on the same topic.
A Note to Entitled Millennials in the Workplace: Give Humility a Try
Imagine for a moment that you’re a middle-level manager, mentoring and leading an ever-shifting kaleidoscope of young employees. Some stay. Some go. But as is typically the case with entry-level positions, turnover is a constant problem. You want to do something about it — you really do — but there’s only so much you can do to make a person’s “first real job” all that glamorous. So you try to at least make the workplace more bearable. You bring in a foosball table and set up tournaments. You treat employees to free lunch on occasion. While you can’t make data entry fun or world-changing, you can at least start to build a workplace community, a place where people can earn a living, learn the discipline necessary to thrive in the real world, and start their long, slow march up the career ladder.Then, one day, a friend forwards you a viral essay from LinkedIn, and you learn that you’re an idiot. All that effort to make work just a tiny bit more fun? Wasted. You’re losing Millennials because you’re just not amazing enough for them. You’re not designing self-driving cars, redefining social media, or blazing a new trail in adventure tourism. You’re not changing the world. You’re just making an unglamorous product or providing a mundane service, so good luck with your GenX employees, old man. Millennials are simply too awesome to be assigned normal jobs or settle for normal lives.
Tuesday, 13 October 2015
Millennials' Expectations
Getting That First Job
As the phrase "job market" implies, labour is a market place which is subject to the normal dynamics of every other market. Forces of supply and demand set a price of labour, for instance. Since this is so, we predict there are likely to be huge opportunities opening up for the "right kind" of prospective employees in the forthcoming decades.
The reason our confidence is buoyed is that it appears the labour market is increasingly characterised by "Millennials" who believe that the work place exists to serve them, rather than the other way around. Apparently there is a gulf opening up between the expectations of employers and employees. This implies that any employee who has reasonable expectations is going to have a significant competitive advantage over the "you need to do more for me" applicant.
As the phrase "job market" implies, labour is a market place which is subject to the normal dynamics of every other market. Forces of supply and demand set a price of labour, for instance. Since this is so, we predict there are likely to be huge opportunities opening up for the "right kind" of prospective employees in the forthcoming decades.
The reason our confidence is buoyed is that it appears the labour market is increasingly characterised by "Millennials" who believe that the work place exists to serve them, rather than the other way around. Apparently there is a gulf opening up between the expectations of employers and employees. This implies that any employee who has reasonable expectations is going to have a significant competitive advantage over the "you need to do more for me" applicant.
Millennials are wanting international career opportunities, investment in technology and rapid career progression from their jobs, with differing expectations between generations causing problems for employers according to research by recruitment company Robert Walters. The international company surveyed 1,400 professionals and hiring managers across New Zealand and Australia to find out the habits of millennials (those born roughly between 1980 and early 1990's) and their employers as well as what motivated them. [NZ Herald]What might be going on in the minds of folks graduating from school or university and seeking a job?
Thursday, 23 July 2015
Hunger Is a Great Discipline
Indulgent Parenting Leads to a Nanny State
There are at least two perspective on offer when it comes to the nurture and raising of children: the first is the world-views requiring parental indulgence; the second is world views requiring parental discipline.
Whilst it is a generalisation-- we trust not a hasty one--the Chattering Classes and the Commentariat generally favour parental and societal indulgence when it comes to raising children. The little tykes are assumed to be nascent adults and the more they are treated as if they were adults, the more quickly they will mature. In contrast, those adults whose parenting involves consistent rules, structure, and discipline are regarded as harmful agents, implicitly guilty of child abuse.
A recent newspaper piece illustrates this great divide. The issue was food--the right food--for children. Some parents complain that whilst they know sugar-saturated food is bad for their bairns, the whole world conspires against them
There are at least two perspective on offer when it comes to the nurture and raising of children: the first is the world-views requiring parental indulgence; the second is world views requiring parental discipline.
Whilst it is a generalisation-- we trust not a hasty one--the Chattering Classes and the Commentariat generally favour parental and societal indulgence when it comes to raising children. The little tykes are assumed to be nascent adults and the more they are treated as if they were adults, the more quickly they will mature. In contrast, those adults whose parenting involves consistent rules, structure, and discipline are regarded as harmful agents, implicitly guilty of child abuse.
A recent newspaper piece illustrates this great divide. The issue was food--the right food--for children. Some parents complain that whilst they know sugar-saturated food is bad for their bairns, the whole world conspires against them
Saturday, 23 June 2012
Homosexual Parenting as "Normal"
As "Normal" As Sexual Abuse of Children
The homosexual propaganda machine, along with its cheerleaders in the Commentariat, portray homosexual parenting as normal. The impact upon children raised in such a home--by either homosexual men or women--is negligible we are repeatedly told. The framing presents children raised in such homes as being no different in any significant respect from children raised in orthodox families. Ergo, homosexual parenting is normal.
One slight problem with this argument is new empirical data.
The homosexual propaganda machine, along with its cheerleaders in the Commentariat, portray homosexual parenting as normal. The impact upon children raised in such a home--by either homosexual men or women--is negligible we are repeatedly told. The framing presents children raised in such homes as being no different in any significant respect from children raised in orthodox families. Ergo, homosexual parenting is normal.
One slight problem with this argument is new empirical data.
Friday, 3 June 2011
Slow Learners
Foolishness Bound Up in the Heart
Sometimes we Christians find ourselves wondering at the foolishness on display in our society. Things which to us are so self-evident and obvious appear beyond the ken of the average Unbeliever. Take something as basic as whether depravity and perverseness is native to the human soul, or not. Christians, realizing that this is something about which we cannot be neutral, turn to the revelation of God to find that indeed we are all corrupt.
The doctrine of Total Depravity is often misunderstood. The Scriptures do not teach that man is corrupt as can be, but that every part of the human being is to some extent corrupted by evil. The "total" in Total Depravity refers to universality not degree. The poison of sin is traceable in every part of our being. In some times and cultures the poison is more advanced than in others. The ante-diluvian civilization, for example, saw a maturation and flowering of evil everywhere: every intent and thought of the heart of men was only evil continually, we are told (Genesis 6:5). But at other times the redemptive record reveals that Unbelieving cultures are a long way short of being filled up with evil (Genesis 15:16).
This being so, it is expected that children, for example, will manifest aspects and manifestations of self-will, disobedience, contumacy, stubbornness, and selfishness from a very early age. "I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin my mother conceived me" says the Psalmist (Psalm 51: 5). The Borg is already on-board the ship, as it were.
Sometimes we Christians find ourselves wondering at the foolishness on display in our society. Things which to us are so self-evident and obvious appear beyond the ken of the average Unbeliever. Take something as basic as whether depravity and perverseness is native to the human soul, or not. Christians, realizing that this is something about which we cannot be neutral, turn to the revelation of God to find that indeed we are all corrupt.
The doctrine of Total Depravity is often misunderstood. The Scriptures do not teach that man is corrupt as can be, but that every part of the human being is to some extent corrupted by evil. The "total" in Total Depravity refers to universality not degree. The poison of sin is traceable in every part of our being. In some times and cultures the poison is more advanced than in others. The ante-diluvian civilization, for example, saw a maturation and flowering of evil everywhere: every intent and thought of the heart of men was only evil continually, we are told (Genesis 6:5). But at other times the redemptive record reveals that Unbelieving cultures are a long way short of being filled up with evil (Genesis 15:16).
This being so, it is expected that children, for example, will manifest aspects and manifestations of self-will, disobedience, contumacy, stubbornness, and selfishness from a very early age. "I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin my mother conceived me" says the Psalmist (Psalm 51: 5). The Borg is already on-board the ship, as it were.
Saturday, 24 April 2010
Teaching Children to be Neurotic
Warning to All NZ Parents
Every parent worthy of the name wants his or her children to grow up in a safe and secure environment. Moreover they want their children to be able to face the future with confidence. If our children grow up fearful, neurotic, and ridden with anxieties we would rightly shoulder the blame. We would have failed in some of the basic obligations of parenting. Right?
Well, then, what would you think of parents whose children at age eight were clearly phobic and neurotic, expressing fears such as the following:
Or,
Or,
These attitudes and fears were expressed to a PhD researcher studying children aged eight to ten to find out what was causing stress in their lives. The researcher suggested that these kinds of fears partially explained why so many children are neurotic.
Where do children get this from? Well of course they get it from the media and from their parents.
But is that the whole story. We fear not. Think of the lexicon here: wars, global warming, pollution, and looming destruction of the planet. We fully and confidently expect that these kids--along with most of their age--have been fed these phobias by their teachers. We know that these issues are relatively unimportant to adults, as expressed through surveys ranking the relative importance of issues of voters. It's highly unlikely these children are daily sitting around the evening table hearing their parents express doom and gloom about Icelandic volcanoes.
But the classroom is another matter. Now, we have completed no research into the matter, but we are confident school children (particularly intermediate school age pupils) are being fed a steady diet from their teachers of alarmism, global warming sirens, and a litany terrible things that are happening and about to happen. Just at random, here is a classic of the genre from Melville Intermediate School.
Our view is that it is neither parents nor the media that is to blame for NZ children growing up racked with fears and neuroses about the future. It is our state schools and the tripe they are feeding our children.
It's parents who should be alarmed--not at life in general, but over the damage government schools appear to be inflicting upon our children. Time to start asking the hard questions about a few sacred cows in the state education system.
Every parent worthy of the name wants his or her children to grow up in a safe and secure environment. Moreover they want their children to be able to face the future with confidence. If our children grow up fearful, neurotic, and ridden with anxieties we would rightly shoulder the blame. We would have failed in some of the basic obligations of parenting. Right?
Well, then, what would you think of parents whose children at age eight were clearly phobic and neurotic, expressing fears such as the following:
Recently I've been worrying about some of the wars that are happening on the other side of the world, why are we just killing people, why can't we just kind of stop it? I kind of just think, I hope it doesn't get any worse.
Or,
I'm worried about the environment and the global warming, the ice and how it's going. I write it down in my little notebook ... I'm thinking people should actually stop the global warming before it's too late for their children.
Or,
The future, if we have children, would there be a future for them?
These attitudes and fears were expressed to a PhD researcher studying children aged eight to ten to find out what was causing stress in their lives. The researcher suggested that these kinds of fears partially explained why so many children are neurotic.
When children have those concerns it can be very distracting and I don't think it's surprising that we have increasing behaviour problems, increasing diagnosis of childhood anxiety disorders and childhood depression.Then there is the case of nine year old Joanna Laxon, who is growing up in a world of fears, dreads, and neuroses:
Nine-year-old Joanna Laxon stresses about finishing school projects, "stuff outside of school", the environment and "what will happen later on in life".
It's a lot for the Auckland girl to worry about but she has plenty of ways of coping with it, from talking to her parents to writing it all down.
According to research into what many 8- to 12-year-olds stress about, Joanna seems to be typical of New Zealand children these days.
When asked what things outside of school caused her stress she said "things that just don't have to do with school". Some are things she's read in the paper or heard from friends.
She had plenty of environmental concerns, including global warming and Iceland's erupting volcano.
"I don't know much about it but I know it's not very good," she said about global warming.
Joanna said these environment issues stressed her out because they "could make a problem". She also worried how they could affect her and other people in the future and the potential harm from pollution.
"Sometimes I just kind of worry about how so many people are killing animals, like in Africa a lot of people are killing lions because their territory is being ruined and then they come to the farms and kill the cows and the farmers shoot them."
Where do children get this from? Well of course they get it from the media and from their parents.
Dr Peter Coleman, a developmental and educational psychologist, said many of the world stressors indicated by children were reflective of their surroundings.
"You'd expect it from the point of view that their parents are concerned about it, talk about it. They see it on the news so they would pick it up."
But is that the whole story. We fear not. Think of the lexicon here: wars, global warming, pollution, and looming destruction of the planet. We fully and confidently expect that these kids--along with most of their age--have been fed these phobias by their teachers. We know that these issues are relatively unimportant to adults, as expressed through surveys ranking the relative importance of issues of voters. It's highly unlikely these children are daily sitting around the evening table hearing their parents express doom and gloom about Icelandic volcanoes.
But the classroom is another matter. Now, we have completed no research into the matter, but we are confident school children (particularly intermediate school age pupils) are being fed a steady diet from their teachers of alarmism, global warming sirens, and a litany terrible things that are happening and about to happen. Just at random, here is a classic of the genre from Melville Intermediate School.
Polar Bears and Global Warming
View more presentations from Myles Webb.
Our view is that it is neither parents nor the media that is to blame for NZ children growing up racked with fears and neuroses about the future. It is our state schools and the tripe they are feeding our children.
It's parents who should be alarmed--not at life in general, but over the damage government schools appear to be inflicting upon our children. Time to start asking the hard questions about a few sacred cows in the state education system.
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