poverty
Fairfax columnist John Sergeant makes a valid point about all these claims about child poverty:
Summertime and the livin’ might be easy but some of our kids still endure tough times through no fault of their own.
Even so, I still cannot get my head around what “child poverty” is exactly.
It is a rubbish title and the way of measuring it is even worse.
But hey, Jacinda is going to eliminate it, she’s promised.
I understand it’s bandied around as a measure of social failure but those using the term seem to say nothing of explanation as though it’s enough to say it and let others figure out the rest for themselves, but quite frankly it’s beyond me.
I understand that some children live in poverty, conditions which by first world standards are less than acceptable but by other standards aren’t too bad at all.
Especially when you see kids literally starving in countries where social welfare doesn’t exist.
Back in Godzone, cold and damp housing is a genuine issue for holding kids back from enjoying a decent childhood.
Living in substandard conditions is tragically a part of the poverty trap with rents exorbitantly high and there’s often no choice for families to accept it.
But sending children to school hungry isn’t acceptable and I remain convinced that the term “child poverty” is becoming more of an excuse for poor parenting and in actual fact the term that should be used is ‘child neglect’.
It’s a parent’s inherent responsibility to care for their children full stop, not to pass the buck onto the government or anybody else.
If you can’t feed them, don’t smoke, drink and all the rest of it.
Spot on. Too may people want to pass the buck to the government. If government is the answer then it was clearly a stupid question.
Kids come first so to have no shoes or rain jackets in the winter and empty bellies is in many cases neglect.
To some degree it’s actually encouraged as various organisations, for instance, feed kids at school unconditionally.
So oddly enough there’s no incentive for parents to feed them at home. Then guess what?
More and more kids turn up hungry and the stats climb so the end of year reports say that “child poverty” is increasing when in actual fact it’s no more than a self-fulfilling prophecy based on the children becoming victims of learned helplessness by parents.
I have seen many parents with very little indeed go hungry themselves to make sure their kids turn up at school proud to be dressed smart, looking smart and acting smart.
That’s how it works but when more and more charities with the best of intentions, inadvertently support a flawed system, I really wonder where our priorities are.
The priorities of the socialists and globalists like Jacinda Ardern, is to have as many people reliant on the state as possible.
We are losing our can do attitude…and replacing it with an entitlement and bludger attitude.