The Prime Minister had the gall to offer up on Christmas day, what can only be described as a limp and pathetic, even desperate attempt to persuade and convince us that she’s “one of us”, by deciding to prostrate herself on the altar of domestic and kitchen realism, with her own “special” solution to the “disaster pavlova” when it cracks down the middle. I have already made a longer comment on another BFD article about this, and other more pressing disasters that perhaps she should really be concerned about.
Last month, we heard that five children, aged between 10 and 13, crashed a stolen car in Morrinsville around midnight on Monday 27th December, and were either seriously or critically injured. It appears that this incident may be related to a break in/smash and grab raid at a vape store earlier the same night. Even the MSM reported them as children, which they are, and not teens, or young people.
The police are reported as saying something along the lines of not wanting to speculate as to the background or events leading up to the crash and would prefer to allow the children’s families to support them at this time.
Hmmmm, OK up to a point, but let’s look at it more closely. Five kids, out together, alone, very late at night, at a time just after Christmas when families are supposed to be together. What kind of family situations do these kids come from, that makes being in a stolen car at this hour of the night preferable to being “at home”? Where is the parental supervision, care, or even fundamental interest in the whereabouts, activities and safety of such young ones?
I don’t buy the line from some parents that “Oh… I can’t control him/her anymore… he/she just does what she wants and goes out if I try to say anything”.
This is a complete cop-out; in my experience, most kids of this age don’t just go off the rails suddenly and reject a caring, interested family, to start roaming around late at night. Something has been developing there for a long time… either a parent/parents too tired, busy or focused on themselves to give their children the time and active involvement they need, or split families with new boyfriends or girlfriends that are more important than the kids, or drugs, booze … the list goes on. Sure, there are exceptions, and most kids will kick back against parental authority at some stage and to some degree, but most kids know at heart when they are safe, secure and loved.
The reality is that this latest incident is just another in a long line of stories about children who are emotionally neglected, lack strong family relationships and do not have the basic need to have someone who really cares about them, puts them first and offers sound role models in their lives met. In New Zealand, far too many kids live without such fundamentals, and we all know what the later spin-offs are.
I would bet that at least some of those kids in the Morrinsville crash, could well have been opening some brightly wrapped gifts on Christmas morning. But maybe after that, they were left to their own devices?
If there IS poverty in this country, it’s a poverty of truly valuing children, and that has little to do with monetary wealth, on any part of the spectrum. Jacinda, take note.