We are raising a phenomenal number of children who will never learn the proper way for a man to treat a woman. All they will ever know is that he's the guy that impregnates and then leaves. Already now there are many women, mostly young Maori women, who expect nothing more of a man.
There needs to be a massive cultural shift to counter this. For starters, women should think all men beneath them who just want to have sex without commitment, without proving themselves.
This all just reminds me of a young Samoan woman who I worked with when I was twelve or so during my school holiday job at the factory my Dad worked at as a toolmaker. She confided in me that her boyfriend at the time just wanted her for sex. He would tell her to lie down on the bed and he'd have his way with her and that was that. I said, why? Why let him do that to you? She didn't know, it was just what she felt was expected of her even though she didn't even like him. I was horrified, I wondered what was wrong with her. Now I'm wondering what is wrong with many of the young women in NZ. Don't they want more from life?
Related link: Welfare reform: Back to work ~ NZ Herald
New Zealand has among the world's highest rates of sole parenthood, especially among low-income groups for whom the DPB may seem a viable lifestyle option. In the 2006 census, 25 per cent of all New Zealand children and 43 per cent of Maori children lived in sole parent families, compared with an OECD average of 16 per cent.
Otara administrator Delaney Papua, who turns 20 next month and is expecting her first baby in November, says going on the benefit seems to be just what you do when you get pregnant.
"All the people that I know that have kids go on it, so I kind of just assumed that you have to be on that," she says.
The babies' fathers often have no role in the families they help create, giving them no anchor in society. Papua doesn't expect her baby's father to support her.
There needs to be a massive cultural shift to counter this. For starters, women should think all men beneath them who just want to have sex without commitment, without proving themselves.
This all just reminds me of a young Samoan woman who I worked with when I was twelve or so during my school holiday job at the factory my Dad worked at as a toolmaker. She confided in me that her boyfriend at the time just wanted her for sex. He would tell her to lie down on the bed and he'd have his way with her and that was that. I said, why? Why let him do that to you? She didn't know, it was just what she felt was expected of her even though she didn't even like him. I was horrified, I wondered what was wrong with her. Now I'm wondering what is wrong with many of the young women in NZ. Don't they want more from life?
Related link: Welfare reform: Back to work ~ NZ Herald