Linley Boniface: We have to start sometime

June 8, 2009

Linley Boniface provides food for thought in her opinion piece in today’s DomPost.

New Zealand was among the last countries in the industrialised world to ban corporal punishment in schools, but attitudes have now changed to the point where most parents would be outraged at any suggestion that teachers be allowed to take a belt, strap or cane to kids.

Bafflingly, though, it appears to be the location of the beating rather than the act itself that some of us object to. We don’t want kids being hit in the classroom, but we’re happy for them to be hit in the home.

Despite clear evidence that the world around us is chock-full of people who couldn’t successfully raise a family of tadpoles to adulthood, we believe anyone above the age of 18 can be trusted to use restraint, caution and common sense in deciding exactly how hard to hit the children in their care…

[N]early one child a week is admitted to Starship children’s hospital with serious injuries inflicted by an adult.

Her bottom line:  It took generations for us to believe that it was unacceptable to beat children in schools. It will take generations for us to believe that it is unacceptable to beat children in our homes. But we have to start sometime.

That time is now.  A YES VOTE supports a better future for our children.

Linley also questions the relationship between the media and and those responsible for calling this referendum on “a deceitful question”.  Read the whole article.