I was at the cinema the other night and among the usual pre-feature advertisements came a public service announcement reminding us to never shake a baby. What kind of society is it that we live in when we have to be told not to shake babies?
It's bad enough that we can't be trusted to smack our children as punishment, because some people don't know how much is too much. But the fact that we seem to need reminding not to shake babies suggests that there is something seriously wrong with our society. It boggles the mind.
We already know that New Zealand has some of the worst domestic abuse records in the world. I heard someone on television the other night say that the most dangerous place in New Zealand is inside our own homes. And our children have it the worst! You don't have to look too far to find examples of this - the Kahui twins are the ones that spring to mind - but there are many others, and I think any efforts taken to counteract this are a positive thing. I just found it interesting that this ad showed before the screening of Boy (a film about a dysfunctional Maori family) and featured mostly Maori males. It seems that we've established where the worst of this problem lies - now how do we go about fixing it?
Because this isn't a Maori problem, as these ads seem to want you to believe. This is a problem that affects the whole of New Zealand society; a society which seems to need really basic instructions in order to function, something we currently don't seem to be doing very well.
Never shake a baby.
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