The anti-smacking bill fear - the nanny state

from www.geekzone.co.nz | 14 Aug

This is not a technology blog post - be warned. It's almost a political statement. It is here to let our PMs know I am not a supporter of the so-called Anti Smacking-bill.

Why? Because it terrorises parents, spreading fear that a idiot neighbour (which I don't think we have any) or badly informed citizen can just call the Emergency services number and report a parent with "hearsay", for something that every child do, such as a tantrum or a bed time crying.

A good example is this story on New Zealand Herald, "Toddler tantrum brings three cops knocking " and "No I don't abuse my kids but thanks for checking".

My daugther Isabella cries in the morning. She cries when she doesn't want to go to bed. She cries in the middle of the night to let us know she wants some milk. She can't speak yet, so she does one of the things she can to communicate with us. to catch our attention when we are not looking - because she's really good at baby sign language I must say, but it only works when we are looking at her, obviously.

I don't believe the anti-smacking bill will make child abuse in New Zealand go away. Parents who were accused of having killed children are not worried about what can happen to then if they smack a child - because they do worst things as we have seen in the latest stories of toddlers being taken to hospitals just to die a few days later.

That is not smacking. That's beating. That's abusing.

I told my wife one evening that I was thinking a police officer would knock in our door, and if that happen I would happily say "Great you are here officer. We need a baby sitter". Not really. We don't. And we don't need a nanny state that is worried with small things while people go around killing children.