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The Kitchen Round Table

a thought piece from Parent.org

Who is the Minister of Parenting?

Welcome to The Kitchen Round Table. You have received this because you are on a database of people we consider interested in this area of thought. Unsubscription details are at the bottom. KRT is a short political thought piece from Parent.org, an organisation dedicated to giving parents a voice.

Ministers for Africa?

The New Zealand government has 77 ministerial portfolios.  The business sector has 27 separate portfolios covering and re-covering just about everything they do.  We have a minister for Ethnic Affairs who must be pretty idle because we also have one for Maori, Pacific Island, Senior Citizens, Veterans, Women and Youth.  A while ago we had a Minister of A Yacht Race and a Minister of A Movie.  Replacing those we now have a Minister of A Few Rugby Games - no one can say that we don't move with the times. 

If it matters - it's got a Minister

Clearly if something is of the slightest importance it has a minister to ensure it's needs are met.  Horse racing - for instance.  Most New Zealanders really don't care all that much about the sport of kings but we have a minister looking after its interests and this year we allocated $307,000 to ensure that .... well, few know or care what that money was used for...oats, perhaps?

If it doesn't, it doesn't - ooops!

You would think that our nation's parents must be doing really, really well because we have deemed it unnecessary to assign anyone to specifically look after their interests.  All our nation's parents must be raising top notch children...right?  Sadly the mere existence of Child, Youth and Family Service, the issue of childhood obesity, violence in classrooms, the building of five new prisons and the recruitment of 1000 new police officers suggests otherwise. 

Maybe Ministers cost too much?

Odd that racing has a minister but only soaks up $307,000 a year while CYFS alone requires $457.331 million (1500 times the oats that racing gets) to undo the damage caused by unskilled parenting (and add to that figure the police, corrections and vast chunks of the health and education budget to get a truer figure of the cost of parental failure) and yet we still don't feel that parenting issues need representation during the political decision making process. 

Maybe not having them costs more?

Perhaps it is because parents haven't had a dedicated voice at the cabinet table that we find we have so many in crisis and have to burn so much taxpayer money trying to fix broken families and cover the social and economic cost they incur.  Lack of mandated representation means that parenting issues get a back seat to every other interest group be it horses or rugby players.

As we said right in the first KRT - parents are the key to everything.  When they succeed their children build a better nation.  When they fail their children become a handbrake on the economy, absorbing the labour of many others to repair the damage they cause.  It is a matter of common sense that we should be intensely interested in promoting successful parenting, and a smart country would be placing the interests of parents above other groups because they see this as a route to long term prosperity and social security?

The Minister of Parenting - a first step to a better country

Creating a dedicated Minister of Parenting is a significant and cost effective step to building a better society.  Only when parenting is seen to be as important and parenting issues are included in cabinet debate will we begin to see improvements in the parenting environment and begin to see more parents striving to raise great kids.  When that happens we can begin to dial back many of the "social" costs we face.