New Zealand is considered a first-world country, yet in so many instances, the treatment of our children would indicate otherwise.

            Let us take a trip back to primary school in a comparatively destitute area of New Zealand in the late 1950s. These kids are provided with free milk (often to go with a free breakfast), free health-care and free education, all at the Governments expense. Now come back to the same area but in the modern age. Look around. See the difference? We have children being shipped off to school having not eaten breakfast and with nothing but a wizened bloody apple core in their burlap sacks for lunch. Really? How can a child be expected to function on next to no sustenance? How can they be expected to learn? How can they be moulded into our future doctors, nurses, architects, builders and the like? How can they be expected to stay awake and assimilate anything in the least, when all their malnourished little bodies want is to shut down to conserve energy?

The plight in which many of these offending parents find themselves is of a financial nature. Not enough money to go around, they reckon. The problem with this is that what little wherewithal they do have, is often not being prioritised, not being channelled; not being distributed prudently. Thus the child misses out. But surely, an unrelated bystander might think, when a woman gives birth to a child, that child immediately becomes the most important feature of her life, thereby earning the right to be first in line for rudimentary human support, meagre as it might be. Surely..?

In a perfect world, yes.

Alas, in a world where gambling seems to focus its clutches on the impoverished; cigarettes and alcohol are the drugs of choice for those who cannot afford them and chocolate biscuits, hand in hand with soft drinks and crisps, are believed by these poor souls to fill part of the ‘Eat Lots’ segment of the food triangle, the terms money and sensibility, have become disparate entities. These parents are probably the result of a childhood similar in nature to the one that their children currently face.

Can I get a Let’s Break the Cycle over here?

This is where the Government comes in – or at least, where it should come in. The average, annual cost of raising a child is $14 000. If a low income couple bring in a total of $28 000, that’s half of their income that they should be spending on their offspring. Be honest. Most low income families have more than one kid. So $14 000 becomes $28 grand. $28 rolls into $32 and so on. The New Zealand Government needs to step in. Public schooling is supposed to be free to those who want it. So why is it not? Why are New Zealand’s poorest families still having to fork out for school fees, for stationery, for uniforms and for other schooling essentials? Why is the Government not offering more help?

All public schools need to be providing a free breakfast for those kids who turn up hungry. So what about free fruit? God knows most of today’s youth don’t get that at home. What about free food in general? It’s public schooling, it’s supposed to be Government funded – so come on Government, start funding. Personally, not a big fan of hand-outs, but come on, the situation is dire. At this rate, 20 years from now, we’ll have raised a generation of insipid lack-wits.

Children are our future. This much is fact. Education shows people how to make the right choices; how to choose the correct path. This is also fact. So why, in world childcare standings, does New Zealand languish at third from the bottom? Is it that we as a nation just don’t care that much about our kids? Or is it that our Government is just not that focused on the optimal upbringing of our up-and-comers?