KEY POINTS:
A book published a couple of weeks ago in Christchurch should be required reading for parents who care what is happening to family life in New Zealand.
And since it won't rate much mention in the daily press, if any at all, I propose to give you a
taste of it, from an article in the independent and non-denominational Christian newspaper Challenge Weekly which I edit.
The book, by Michael Reid, is called From Innocents to Agents and traces the development of children's rights in New Zealand from the 19th century.
His conclusion is that children are political pawns and the growing bureaucracy around them has increased the state's power, often at the expense of children's welfare.
Dr Reid, who has a PhD in history, has taught in primary and secondary schools for 15 years and is married with three children, is curriculum adviser for one of the country's foremost Christian schools, Middleton Grange in Christchurch.
In Victorian times, he says, children were seen as "innocents" needing protection within families with minimal state involvement.
Today, however, the view is that children are "empowered agents" and the state's involvement is primary. There has been increasing politicisation of children, and phenomenal growth of special interest groups and lobbyists who view children as political beings and autonomous agents.
And that, says Dr Reid, has led to such moves as a parliamentary bill removing the power of parents to smack children, and the case of the 16-year-old girl allowed by the Family Court to "divorce" her mother, which Dr Reid says is "bizarre".
"The state is now taking an unprecedented role in children's lives. While much government action has improved children's welfare, it has coincided with major redefinitions of the family and is increasingly alienating children from their true source of security and nurture.
"Children's rights are increasingly usurping parental rights, which is clearly seen in the debate over whether to repeal section 59 of the Crimes Act.
"Repealing that section would radically alter the relationship between parents and children, making effective discipline very difficult."
Dr Reid says rights mean something only in the context of relationships, and if the state is in the business of empowering children through enabling rights, potentially there is room for real conflict with parents.
"A basic question is whose rights are the most right when there is a clash - a parent's right to assert his or her reasonable sovereignty over the family, or a teenager's right to go it alone and do what he or she wants?
"Even more basic is the question: what is a child? We might think that is self-evident but legally what that means is very much in flux."
Dr Reid maintains that the modern view of rights has stemmed from international law emanating from the United Nations.
"Once we start embracing international law as the yardstick for raising children, and the state becomes the empowered body to enforce those rights, it changes the whole dynamic of how we understand children within families.
"We need to consider that if the Government is in the business of dispensing rights, there has to be some authoritative body to enforce those rights, and that becomes the state itself.
"And we should all know that too much power concentrated in the hands of the state is not a good thing for ordinary citizens. There are implications for democratic freedoms if the state is not just protecting our basic freedoms but trying to define and shape them as well."
Dr Reid says a law change on smacking will not see the end of legislation affecting children's rights as there is already much discussion about giving children the vote.
To do that, as some advocates would like, would be to undermine, if not eliminate, the whole concept of childhood. The legal construct of a minor would probably vanish. "What would be left to distinguish between adults and children?" Dr Reid asks.
It is a strange dichotomy, he observes, that on the one hand people campaign strongly to protect children, and on the other hand are trying to turn them into adults.
"The bottom line is that children are born into a human family. That is what gives them their identity and direction, that's what should provide for their nurture. We know there are some instances where families don't, of course, and I think in those cases the state does have a legitimate interest.
"But in terms of the section 59 repeal, for example, there is an assumption that all parents who discipline their children are being violent towards them. That is simply not true because disciplining children is part of the parent-child relationship and it's very different from correcting a child to beating one. Most people know the difference.
"Being a parent is about disciplining children, whether you do it physically, verbally or a combination. You are there to guide and nurture kids, and that's a disciplinary thing.
"It's always an uneven relationship until the child reaches maturity. But if it's exercised responsibly, it's not a problem."
Dr Reid researched and wrote From Innocents to Agents for the Maxim Institute, an independent research and public policy think-tank for which he was once a policy analyst. But don't let that put you off. Wisdom is wisdom.
