Open Writing

Where has he gone? You know that friendly bloke who used to walk along the streets, trying doors and giving the young larrikins a quick kick up the butt and threatening to tell their mum if they didn’t get off home.

I don’t remember any great problems with the youth of my day, other than apple scrumping and other such minor misdemeanours and, as I complete my book on the old hall, I visualise old PC Snow patrolling the local youth to see that no illicit booze was sneaked into the dance hall, with a smart reminder, “See you in my office tomorrow and bring your mother.”

Today it would not be PC (politically correct). We would be damaging the psyche’of our youth forever. “Naughty boy, don’t do that,” isn’t the way to deal with our young, over stimulated teenagers.

What is happening to our teenagers? What is happening to society today, as we bend over backwards to condone offenders, pass laws to prevent parents disciplining their children and I don’t mean hitting them with a piece of 4 by 2 or throwing them against a wall in a drunken, drugged frenzy. No, the average mum, who tucks her children into bed at night, after a goodnight story and a kiss, is now no longer allowed to tap junior on the back of his legs if he runs amok in the supermarket, upsetting shelves and knocking over little old ladies. That is “assault”. The child needs “time out” in his centrally heated bedroom, furnished with computer, TV, DVD and all the other“stuff, where he normally spends most of his time anyway to consider the errors of his ways.

The anti-smacking law in New Zealand terrifies normal, responsible parents but does nothing to deter the abuse caused by those the Act was meant to control.

I read endless articles in papers about good parenting, etc, and yet am aware that the folk who really need advice probably can’t read, let alone buy papers, and so I start to wonder about those precious children being brought up in disruptive homes where they have little or no chance of reaching their full potential, becoming good parents themselves, or being able to escape from the horrific nightmares of their youth. No wonder they gather together in groups, dressed in hoodies and sleeping rough until they are picked up by some gang member to be initiated into the gang by committing theft, rape or being imprisoned. And I think of the young girls, children themselves, who enter this sort of life in the hope of finding a family, and my heart bleeds. Where has love and responsibility gone?

A lot of things have changed during my life. My upbringing was poor and we had very little. Today it would have been called deprived, but it wasn’t. We were taught right from wrong and were able to have a good education, thanks to Butler’s Education Act, 1944, with both my brother and I going on to tertiary education at no cost to our parents. I will never forget bringing a book home from school at the age of five. Where did this come from?” my mother asked. “The fairies brought it,” I answered, for every so often, when there was a bit to spare, the “fairies” would leave special treats in odd places.

“No they didn’t,” mum said and I was duly marched back to school and made to apologise and face up to my crime. I never took anything which wasn’t rightfully mine again. Years later I did the same with my son, aged four, when he came home with a packet of sweets. “Did Mrs X give you those?” I asked and sheepishly he said “No.” Back he went and I believe and sincerely hope that he has never taken anything which didn’t belong to him since.

It was a simple life, teatime was at 5 pm, bedtime at 7 pm or 8 pm depending on your age and how light it was. You played out and worked your energy off and were not glued to TV, computers and video games and your parents knew where you were and what you were up to. It was all straight forward, for most anyway.

But things have changed. Now mum has to go out to work to buy little Johnny his computer, otherwise he is deprived. Whether he goes to school or not or does his homework is not important. Mum is too tired to bother. She also needs her time out. It can’t be 24 – 7. She needs her nights out with the girls.

Marriages, if there are any, are breaking up and women with three or four kids, not necessarily by the same father, sit on the doorsteps of rented, rundown properties and smoke and scream at crying youngsters. Why are they crying? The play park down the street costs nothing, the swimming pool is open and there are still trees to climb and streams to dam up and the library is free. Why not get a few seeds and dig that overgrown ground up, flowers for mum and a few spuds and fresh vegetables, but that is hard work isn’t it? Why do the youth of today think it all has to be given to them? Why can’t they realise that you only get out what you put in?

Yes, I am on my bandwagon and, as with all bandwagons, it has its flaws. The young parents of today and the children of today are not all drop-outs, whingers and no-hopers. I have just read the ERO (Education Review Office) report on our local High School, the school I still regard as mine having taught there for so many years in the past. It has scored very highly and is a school to be proud of. As I do Tai Chi and aerobics in the gym every week, I look through the glass wall to the school gym and see the pupils, in their smart kits, playing basketball and performing other gymnastic feats and I realise that in spite of the high rates of crime, violence and child abuse which hit the headlines, giving us due cause to worry, there is still that hard core of good parents and good children who make up the backbone of our society.

So I return to my original question, where is the bobby on the beat. Where is the sense of community responsibility and why doesn’t someone just step in and say “Hey that won’t do,” before things get really out of hand? Why do we have to be so PC? Why do we have to continually make excuses for folk who are plain anti-social? Why can’t we say “Enough’s enough, do as you are told.''

Let’s get the bobby back on the beat instead of driving around in twos in cars and picking up folk for doing 10km over the speed limit and, no, I haven’t had a speeding ticket.

Glen Taylor
© 2008