Our Children Are Not Our Punchbags

First the Background

A few years back people in our country was transfixed when a judge ruled that a woman who had beaten her kid with a horsewhip was only using "reasonable force" for the purpose of correction, a defence which was then allowed under Section 59 of The Crimes Act. I hate to think what that judge's home life was like.

It came out that many parents who might otherwise have been found guilty of child abuse (whacking their kids with blocks of wood and all sorts of other implements) were using Section 59 as a defence and winning their cases.

Sue Bradford of the Greens Party responded by bringing to Parliament (back in 2003 this was) a private members bill to Repeal Section 59 of the Crimes Act to address this situation. "Parents", said Ms Bradford, "are supposed supposed to be protectors, not attackers, and children should feel totally safe at home."

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"You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable."

Kahlil Gibran.

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Finally The Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Act 2007 amended the principal Act, to make better provision for our children to live in a safe and secure environment which should be free from violence by abolishing the use of parental force for the purpose of correction. This bill was passed by an overwhelming majority of 113 to 8 votes.

Some of you who were reading my Yahoo!360 blog may remember me writing on this topic before. We basically got up to about here. All was good.

But ...

The far-right-wing Act Party (Act is anti-regulation of any kind even to protect our kids, it seems) and disgruntled MP Taito Phillip Field voted the minority eight votes. This bill, I could point out, was not actually increasing regulation, it was merely amending the existing regulation to improve it. That point seem to have escaped the ACT party.

The Referendum

Since then, a campaign of misinformation led by much of our media, some extreme fundamentalist christians, Act supporters and sympathisers, and brainless celebrities like Simon Barnett to name a few, has culminated in a Citizens Initiated Referendum. We get to have a referendum if someone circulates a petition and enough of the Kiwi adult population sign it, (I think they need to get about 10%).

The former United Future MP Larry Baldock designed this confusing and heavily loaded referendum question, “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?” He was collecting signatures on this months before the new law was even finally passed.

The first point which I think needs to be made is that The Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Act 2007 doesn't actually make smacking a criminal offence. The new law has not led to mass criminalisation of good parents.Indeed, a review of police reports have indicated that the number complaints even made have been very small. There has appeared to have been some increase in complaints about the use of more heavy handed force (not just smacking) and some prosecutions (as in the well publicised James Mason case). Other cases have been resolved in a range of other ways including referral to Child, Youth & Family (CYF), case conferencing and advice to parents.

Secondly there are many parents (like me) who do not think that smacking/hitting whatever your kids is part of any good parenting strategy. Quite often stressed parents smack their kids purely because they, the parents are stressed, but as the title of this post notes, our children are not our punch bags. We throw our hands up in horror nowadays when men belt into women (I was just feeling stressed honey) because men are so much bigger and more physically powerful than the women they hit, but surely, we parents are also bigger and more powerful than our kids.

What we find, in fact, is that many young parents don't really want to hit their kids at all but when they themselves have been brought up with smacking as punitive discipline, many times they simply do not know what to do instead. A child advocate came to our town a few weeks back to talk to parents on just this subject and was surprised (and very pleased) that none of the young mums she met had any problem with the law, none of them wanted to smack their kids, what they wanted was ideas and advice and helpful alternatives to smacking.

We all want our children to grow up to be well behaved, responsible people, able to have peaceful and happy relationships with their partners and children. Children need positive, safe and secure childhoods if they are to grow up to be successful, non-violent and happy people.

A recent survey showed that at least 3 out of 4 Kiwis believe this referendum to be a waste of money.

A referendum isn't a cheap thing. This one is expected to cost us $9million. In a recession. Great.

Voting in the referendum runs from Friday 31st July until Friday 21st August, 2009. Kiwis will get our voting paper in the mail between Friday 31st July and Friday 7th August, 2009.

Taken from an interview
on National Radio's Morning Report (June 17, 2009)

Larry Baldock: It is absolutely clear that if a parent uses any reasonable force right now to correct their child right now they are breaking the law…

Sean Plunket: Can you give us an example of that having happened?

Larry Baldock: There are examples that we’ll have available…

Sean Plunket: Can you give us a single example of that having happened, please?

Larry Baldock: There was a grandfather for example, who tipped his grandson out of a chair because the grandson refused to obey his grandfather to turn down the television and so on.

Sean Plunket: Was he convicted and was that a smack?

Larry Baldock: He plead guilty …

Sean Plunket: Was that a smack?

Larry Baldock: No, he tipped him out of a chair….

But wait, there's more...

Sean Plunket: Can you point to anyone who has been criminalised for smacking a child?

Larry Baldock: Yes we can.

Sean Plunket: Please, could you give me an example?

Larry Baldock: Well, I’ll have to go to my list of examples.

Sean Plunket: Can you give me a single example off the top of your head?

Larry Baldock: No, not off the top of my head, I can’t...

Wouldn’t it be nice to send Baldock a bill for $9million?