For some Christmas is a stark reminder that the cupboard is bare not just of turkey, but all year round.
This week we reported that Tauranga principal Jan Tinetti never asks kids at her decile one school what they got for their birthday, "because more than often they don't get anything".
Likely it is the same at Christmas. Tinetti said that when a local firm bought the school children presents, almost half the kids didn't open their gift immediately, choosing instead to take it home to have something to open at Christmas.
This week outgoing Children's Commissioner Dr Russell Wills released the latest annual Child Poverty Monitor. It revealed children in households earning below 60 per cent of the median household income after housing costs almost doubled from 15 per cent of all children in 1984 to 29 per cent last year.
Children hospitalised with poverty-related illnesses more than doubled in the 1990s and has increased further in the recent recession. Dr Wills wanted to get the message, "Child poverty - it's not choice" spread through social media in a challenge to government policy.
"Everything points to things being far tougher than they were 30 years ago. That's not right in a country like ours and it's not fair."
Most in the country would agree that to have a third of children living in poverty is not acceptable. What is harder to agree upon is what to do about it. While it is easy to say keeping children clothed, warm and fed is the responsibility of parents, there are some parents who will not or cannot or do not know how to fulfil this responsibility.
We could spend years debating whose responsibility it is - and we have.
It is time for action to be taken to change these sorry statistics, and in my view the action should be targeted at children directly. Things like a bill to introduce food in schools, support systems in schools and communities to assist those in financial difficulty with things like the cost of education, more community food projects like those of local charity Good Neighbour.
Looking after the most vulnerable members of our society is a reflection of the strength of a society. Whether you think it is up to the parents or not, letting a child go hungry, cold and left out of educational activities is not acceptable in New Zealand.
Children need to be the focus and direct beneficiary of any policy tackling child poverty.
