It'd be a difficult ask if you actually lived through its madness.

Maybe you might recall Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry movies is worthy of note, but I can only watch them in fury today - as I did then.

Starting in the late 60s, the only movie roles for young attractive women were the gamut of hair colours from blonde to brunette, with various accents and skin colours. They all behaved, regardless of the colour of their wigs, like that male invention, a nymphomaniac, dropping their undies for any cop with a swish-back hairdo and a big handgun.

The effect was comedic; the intention not even ironic. Feminists who dared to call for equality were portrayed as monsters. Clint couldn't stand them.

It seemed like everyone was slavering after young women who were "on the pill," the notorious new gateway to much bad sex. Hugh Hefner was taken seriously, even in his pyjamas.

And in New Zealand, we had Bert Potter's Centrepoint commune. I look back on that experiment as a turning point for middle-class values that left a legacy of unhappiness and regret.

Just how a former pest controller (no irony there either) came to be a guru of human sexuality can never really be explained, but Centrepoint was covered by a tame media as a credible pathway to the fully realised life, kids watching the adults in action, the old boy himself living his personal pornographic fantasy, while otherwise intelligent people joined up to be liberated from bourgeois hang-ups like fidelity and privacy.

It ended in crying. In a courtroom, fun looks so different, and excuses echo hollowly.

I expect there's embarrassment among many former livers of that dream who'd rather forget. I know there was real harm done to children, some of whom were fed ecstasy to make them co-operate with Centrepoint men.

And their parents thought that was OK. Or didn't think. There wasn't much thinking happening. Continue reading

The company's research shows that along with feeling their children's lives were becoming too complicated, many parents felt increased pressure to provide for their children and were disappointed about the impact digital devices were having on family life.

The study also showed that when it came to spending time as a family, the most likely activity, apart from eating together (43%), was to watch television (24%).

More than eight in ten (81%) of Kiwis surveyed thought that their own kids' childhood was more complicated than their own, with a quarter (24%) of parents saying their children were involved in some sort of after-school activity three or more days per week.

Parents also said they felt under more pressure to provide for their children than their own parents, with more than half (54%) saying this was the case.

Digital devices also came under fire with 69% of respondents saying that they were negatively impacting on the family. Parents said they were also confused about healthy food choices, with more than four in ten (42%) saying they weren't sure what constituted a healthy option.

Psychologist Sara Chatwin says the research shows that we could all look at finding new ways to "connect" with our loved ones.

Chatwin says it's understandable that with increases in living costs parents are feeling overwhelmed with the pressure to provide for their children.

The Sanitarium Health and Wellbeing Company is the trading name of two sister food companies (Australian Health and Nutrition Association Ltd and New Zealand Health Association Ltd).

Both are wholly owned by the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Its flagship product is Weet-Bix, sold in the Australian and New Zealand breakfast cereal markets.

Source

• www.newsie.co.nz
• wikipedia.org
• Image: weetbix.co.nz

The Unicef - Innocenti study ranked New Zealand 34th out of 41 OECD countries.

A core reason for this was our adolescent suicide rates, the highest in the world, and high rates of teen pregnancy, baby mortality and child murder. Continue reading

"We judge those in the Victorian era of having a very crude approach to child welfare … well I think a lot of what we're doing right now might be judged as almost (as bad)...,"

• In the past 25 years, the number of children living in income poverty has doubled.
• About 10 percent of children in the general population have dyslexia, while for their counterparts caught up in the justice system it's as high as 32 percent.
• Those in trouble with the law are also about 10 times more likely to suffer from foetal alcohol syndrome.
• Maori children are five times more likely to live in crowded housing, twice as likely to be living in poverty.

Becroft said our knowledge of learning difficulties and behavioural disorders is growing, but we still "see through a glass dimly," and he worries about those labelled disruptive who are really just struggling, with little help.

"I think we will have a revolution of our understanding of our young people in the next 20 to 30 years, especially from the criminal justice point of view."

Becroft also finds it bizarre that it is difficult to question the decision of a school's Board of Trustees.

"It's concerning that at the moment there's no realistic way of challenging a Board of Trustees' decision short of going to the High Court … I mean if Super 15 rugby players can have appeals heard within a week or two, you'd think that our kids deserve no less a service."

On Wednesday prime minister Bill English announced $321 million from this month's budget to go into a social investment programme targeting the most vulnerable sectors of society where he says an early and bigger intervention can save taxpayers money in the long-run.

Source

• newsroom.co.nz
• nzherald.co.nz
• Image: newsroom.co.nz

iTaukei Affairs Board representative to the Labasa Inter Agency Committee on Child Welfare, Ravuama Naceba, has been in Dogotuki addressing the issue.

"When addressing the issue, we had offered the parents a choice on whether they wanted to continue exercising their freedom of religion or whether they wanted to be taken to task for denying their child's right to education," he said.

After considering their situation, the parents chose to allow their children to attend classes in the nearest school.

Ravuama said the committee needed to confirm whether issues such as the freedom of religion superseded the right of children to immunisation and education or whether it was subjective to these rights.

Source

• Fiji Times
• Image: 1.bp.blogspot.com