Tapu Misa: We must have good parents as well as good workers

With Waitangi Day failing to provide anything like the usual drama - the coverage reflecting, for once, the harmony and unity that most people find when they visit the nation's birthplace - there was nothing to do but focus on that front-row seating arrangement.

It seemed symbolic somehow that our top women just weren't in the picture, being consigned either to the back seats, or skulking around the Copthorne Hotel pretending that what was going on at Te Tii marae wasn't important.

So we were left with the telegenic Brian Tamaki, the self-described spiritual father of the Destiny Party, who believes a woman's place is in the home; Don ("You're fired") Brash, who believes a woman's place is on the backbenches, unless she agrees with everything he says; and Tame Iti, who doesn't care as long as he gets to play with his shotgun.

I suppose the Prime Minister should be congratulated for trying to put women where they belong - out in the real world, adding to the GDP by doing real work, rather than being at home with their children, who, as everyone knows, virtually look after themselves after the age of 5.

But it did leave her open to the suggestion that maybe a Government dominated by women who have no children wasn't really capable of understanding that even working mums (and dads) don't see dawn-to-dusk childcare or full-time nannies as the answer to all our prayers, much as we would appreciate cheap, good-quality care being available to all.

Some of us, though we have to work for the sake of our mortgages as well as our sanity, would much prefer that our employers and the Government recognised our need to be good parents as well as good workers, without our having to collapse from exhaustion and stress to prove it.

While others of us, who sacrifice income and career advancement to look after our children, regard that work as just as important, if not more so, and would really appreciate it if we weren't made to feel like intellectually deficient malingerers who contribute nothing of value to society.

Really, it was hard to decide which party leader ticked off more women last week, but on reflection I'd have to declare Brash the winner.

I'd been working on the assumption that the Opposition leader isn't so much arrogant and out of step with Maori and women as just a little hard of hearing. It was either that, or he really was just another desperate, cynical politician who'd say anything, sacrifice anyone, to get a rise out of the polls.

But he's such a sincere and earnest sort of fellow, I wanted to think that he really didn't hear Georgina te Heuheu when she dissented over the critical points of his speech on so-called special Maori rights. Just as he appears not to have heard his welfare expert, Katherine Rich, when she demurred on the more extreme elements of his beneficiary attack.

I see now that it wasn't his hearing that was the problem, but his very strong sense of his own rightness.

One does not get to be Governor of the Reserve Bank and leader of the National Party without a profound sense of self-belief, and a deep conviction that one is always right.

Indeed, I've been reflecting on this apparent lack of self-doubt and self-awareness among our leaders since I happened on an article in the Los Angeles Times by psychologist Roy F. Baumeister, the author of the just-published The Cultural Animal.

Baumeister, with many other psychologists, had once been a fan of the proposition that high self-esteem could hold the key to many societal ills - crime, teen pregnancy, pollution, school failure and underachievement, drug abuse and domestic violence.

Everyone, included Baumeister, wanted to believe that people's problems would vanish if they could just learn to accept and love themselves more.

But after wading through masses of studies, he concludes, and I'm paraphrasing here, that the problem with the world is not too little self-esteem but too much.

Of course, this comes as no surprise to those of us who have observed children with too much self-esteem (otherwise known as obnoxious, self-centred brats), or worked with individuals who never seemed to be plagued by self-doubt (otherwise known as arrogant, know-it-all prats).

But it's interesting to find that, contrary to popular belief (teachers and parents take note), high self-esteem doesn't produce higher grades - though doing well does make kids feel better about themselves and may even be counter-productive.

Self-esteem doesn't make for better employees, either - though, interestingly, and despite objective tests suggesting otherwise, those with high self-esteem always rated their performance better, even declaring themselves smarter and more attractive than their more modest colleagues.

And (politicians and televangelists take note) high self-esteem didn't necessarily make good leaders (humility rather than self-esteem being a key trait of successful leaders). Nor did it prevent violent or bullying behaviour.

"In reality," writes Baumeister, "violent individuals, groups and nations think very well of themselves. They turn violent to others who fail to give them the inflated respect they think they deserve."