Lack of skill an obvious saw point

BY ALAN CLARKE

It's Father's Day and the creative juices have been lubricated with two swigs too many of the S and F's surprisingly excellent ginger lager washed down with some cheap but fruity sauv blanc.

The whanau has spent the best part of a gorgeous spring afternoon here, and that's a rare blessing - in part because it meant a couple of real Kiwi blokes were on hand to ensure the maiden voyage of a new barbecue was a blast, if not a literal one.

I'd have got there in the end, though the missing battery in the electric ignition switch would have stumped me for a while, especially given the inadequacy of the manual. The emergence of Chinglish as our fourth national language has given the old adage, "When all else fails, read the instructions" less relevance than it once had.

My lack of competence and confidence with the ridiculously simple task of wiring up and firing up the barbie was far from the only sign this day of a less than usually capable Kiwi bloke.

There was - is - the horribly hashed job I'd made that morning of hacking off the tops of some posts on a 30m long retaining-wall-cum-garden box I've been bashing together in my spare time.

The idea was to cut the posts off flush with the top of the box then make a second angled cut to tidy things up.

Unfortunately, I've yet to make it to the night school class that teaches us to match grand expectations with ability, and the Government's plans for that slice of New Zealand life mean it's a lesson I'm probably fated never to learn.

I won't mention that the 20-year-old (non)skill saw with its rusty and blunt blade is sans two of three handles, part of the guard and the nuts used to adjust its cutting depth and angle. Excuses don't wash, especially when the son-in-law passing a critical eye over my not-so-handiwork is one of the most fastidious builders around. I should count my blessings that it's not my fingers I'm merrily lopping off at odd angles.

The job's so bad I'm considering gluing the off-cuts back on and applying bog and a couple of dozen coats of paint to try to disguise the damage - but I doubt even that'll salvage things. The thing about DIY is that we usually do learn as we go - but not until the damage is done.

I guess parenting can be a bit like that too. If there were instruction manuals around 30 years ago when our two DNA baton-carriers came along we certainly didn't hunt them down. In our early 20s, we were pretty much left to it, though we were fortunate to be able to call on our own parents for back-up, advice and the odd bit of sanity time.

Despite the real opportunity for serious screw-ups, we had a particularly smooth parenting journey as it turned out. Two uber-cool young people with whip-smart partners and no serious habits, addictions or convictions have resulted, and are all also our friends - how awesome a Father's Day gift is that?

I don't want to sound smug or even more bent by ginger lager and cheap sauv blanc than I am, but, with a Michael Jackson doco playing on the telly behind me and the day's events foremost in my mind, it seems as obvious as my carpentry failings that, just as some people should never be allowed near a skill saw, others should not be allowed to breed.

And, if the state can't (won't) find a way to prevent that, it should be given the resources and national will to intervene early and decisively to separate (save) our most vulnerable young from those few feral parents who so shame us in the eyes of the world.

While the result of the smacking referendum was touted as a valid response against the nanny state, as far as I'm concerned this country shows weekly - daily - exactly why we need someone to hold our hand, as it were, in order to protect our most vulnerable from harm.

Yes, of course there have been some inappropriate interventions by CYF and its predecessors which have put families through harrowing and degrading experiences on little more than a whim. But where the safety of babies and toddlers is concerned, we cannot be over-protective. Those adults who see children as chattels and claim the right to abuse them should have no rights at all.

Too many children are being harmed, in part because of the state's reluctance to intervene early enough. Some parents should not be allowed out of the maternity wards with their newborn - a point made last week by the chief executive of Barnados in Britain, Martin Narey. He was quoted in the Observer as calling for less effort to be directed at "fixing families that can't be fixed" and for social workers to be braver about removing children at risk.

"We can't keep trying to fix families that are completely broken. It sounds terrible, but I think we try too hard with birth parents.

"I have seen children sent back to homes that I certainly wouldn't have sent them back to. I have been extremely surprised at decisions taken.

"If we really cared about the interests of the child, we would take children away as babies and put them into permanent adoptive families, where we know they will have the best possible outcome."

Here here. His sentiments apply equally to this country. Our appalling statistics around family violence and child poverty are the reality of a state that is not yet nanny enough by half.

And while the likes of Paul Henry were getting huffy last week over the latest OECD stats around child wellbeing, questioning the relative level of poverty in this country compared with elsewhere, it seems to me the real issue is the gulf between rich and poor, which the recession has only widened. With some individuals having 10 cars in the garage or $5 million-plus salaries and others next to nothing, we are gripped by an inequality crisis. No wonder there is growing resentment, rage and despair, on a street near you.

So, anyway. Happy Father's Day. There is no more important task. And as for incompetence with an ailing skill saw - when all else fails, call out a tradesman.

- © Fairfax NZ News