Bruce Logan: Family values prevent abuse

I am a grandfather who loves his grandchildren. There is nothing particularly unusual or praiseworthy about that; they are easy to love. The children live in the same city so I see a great deal of them. They know me well and respond with affection. I get more cuddles than I deserve.

The world I live in is a million miles away from the abuse of children. Certainly children can be frustrating and naughty. They are self-centred and wilful little creatures but they are children and that is the point.

They demand little; security, consistency, affection and physical care are not difficult to give. When children get these they will know they are loved. It is very simple.

But perhaps not. I hear and read so much about child abuse in New Zealand and sometimes I even see it. The poignant sadness of poverty, welfare dependency, impoverished parenting, single mothers trying to do their best with boys who obviously miss their father, is not lost on me.

Has it always been like this? I think not. Certainly some children have always had irresponsible parents, single mothers have been around for a long time and parents, even my own, were far from perfect and, indeed, I was a long way from being the perfect father. But what stopped me abusing my children?

The answer is obvious. The social structures and the pervasive morality of marriage, faithfulness, self-discipline, the reality of shame and guilt, and natural affection worked together to protect my children. My learned sense of manliness and self-respect was profoundly bound up in all of this.

I have now lived long enough to know that the common action of private individuals has a profound influence on society as a whole. When enough people regard self-fulfilment as their primary aim, an entire culture is transformed. Private virtue influences public behaviour for both good and bad.

New Zealand, like many other Western nations, has been engaged in a dangerous social experiment for nearly 50 years. Self-discipline has been exchanged in schools and the public square for self-realisation. That has brought new opportunities to many people but it has put children, and in many cases, mothers, at risk.

The consequent family breakdown which is now well advanced leaves children isolated and many parents inadequate and incompetent. The old intergenerational support structures which served to alleviate stress are simply not there.

The law has changed, too. It is now less an instrument of stability than an instrument to alleviate struggles among competing ideas about equality between men and women, individual self-realisation, alleged inequality between groups, sexual freedom of expression and the devaluation of marriage. The educative power of law is now so strong that people tend to draw their morality and practical living from it. Ultimately law and response to it, rather than personal moral convention, determine social direction.

Sex and marriage used to be about the birth and nurturing of children and social order. Now sex is about the acceptance of behaviour which is of no concern to anyone other than the consenting adults involved. We are blind to an obvious irony.

There has never been so much ungrounded talk about "caring and sharing" or "meaningful relationships". The more we talk about them, the less we get. Every school now must have at least one counsellor and compulsory sex education, all in the context of never-ending debate about "values."

And while all the talk continues every social indicator that we care to think about is in freefall. We look to the state to alleviate the symptoms with our tax dollars but ignore the cause. And we do so because the solution, which we really know in our hearts, and which is muted by the ideology of relativist individualism, would be altogether too painful. We no longer believe that sacrifice lies at the centre of love.

And so we continue to ease our guilt every now and then when child abuse becomes just too terrible. Talkback radio is indignantly replete with accusations of guilt and the need for punishment. The brutal deaths of the Kahui twins following on from James Whakaruru and a child we came to know as "Lillybing" briefly arouse our consciences. In the cold world of child abuse we can only bear touching the tip of the iceberg.

So what should we do in order to improve the lives of our children? The answer is obvious; at least it was 50 years ago. But it would seem that we need re-educating in simple and enduring truths.

The family is the basic unit in any society and its ongoing vitality is essential if human beings are to learn how to love. Only the family can establish moral continuity from one generation to another. The consequent care and education of children is what creates responsible citizens in a stable nation.

It is not possible to have an operating liberal democracy if children are not first taught virtue in the home. Public order in any civil society depends upon it. Plato and Aristotle knew this, so did the Jews of the Old Testament and the writers of the American Constitution. New Zealanders are now in the process of surrendering their national liberty in the name of a thoughtless personalised freedom. That is why children are being abused.

* Bruce Logan was a former founder and director of the Maxim Institute.