KEY POINTS:
I'm quick to condemn child abusers, but sometimes I suspect we're getting carried away in our opinion of what's bad for kids.
We were supposed to be deeply shocked and horrified this week when it was revealed the Broadcasting Standards Authority, and Office of Film and Literature Classification had researched teenagers' reactions to violent movies.
The story was much more sexed up than that. "Children as young as 14" had been "subjected to footage of rape, sadism and domestic violence".
When you read on, these kids' assessments were very mature. While the youngest teenagers had gained parental consent, only the 18-year-olds were shown the most violent scenes.
On cue, Bob McCoskrie from Family First lobby group was "horrified", and that parents had consented "says something about the parents". I'm glad McCoskrie wasn't spokesman for good parenting 33 years ago when I started having kids because my children would have been removed from my care.
Clearly, in the eyes of the perfect parents who make up Family First, I was not fit to be a mother.
For a start, I was only married to the father of the first child - the next three were born out of wedlock.
All were toilet-trained at 12 months. Bedtimes were a moveable feast, depending on how tired I was, how determined the child was to remain awake, and anyway, when I thought about it rationally, what did it matter if the child went to bed at midnight?
If they wanted to watch the Goodnight Kiwi, an excuse invariably employed to remain with the grown-ups, theirs would be the suffering when they either missed half the day's fun by sleeping in, or spent an unhappy day being wretched.
When they started school, they quickly figured it was in their best interest to go to bed when requested. Plus they found they got a story read to them every night, because before 8pm Mum or Dad was still in a good enough mood to read What-a-Mess for the zillionth time.
I tried really hard not to stereotype.
Why should a boy want guns to play with?
Unfortunately for PC-minded parents, kids have other ideas, and boys will sit in their highchairs shooting everyone with a banana, or an L-shaped bread crust, if they're denied a toy pistol.
And despite being bullied by his big sister into wearing every pretty frock in the dress-up basket, my son, now aged 30, is unquestionably masculine in his sartorial tastes.
This same boy would watch every violent movie on television if I wasn't around. Miller's Crossing was a favourite, and if I was passing through the room with an armload of washing, he rewound the tape and forced me to watch a particularly gruesome scene.
Mad on skateboarding, he laughed hilariously at the scenes in skating videos where madcap riders fall and break their wrists or ankles.
Yet today he is just as sweet-natured as the little 2-year-old who sat with his sheepskin cuddly, sucking his thumb. He would no more deliberately cause someone physical harm than fly to Mars.
His youngest sister had a much worse upbringing, because from the day she was born her parents worked day and night in their restaurants.
If a sex scene came on TV, someone would put a blanket over her head.
She suffered a string of appalling nannies, before Fijian Leba became her surrogate mother, fending off the teasing and bullying from her older siblings.
At 23, she's perfectly well-adjusted, and those same sisters and brother who taunted her to buy Selleys No-More-Gaps to plug her teeth, today would cross the world and die to save her life if it were threatened.
My children's upbringing was unconventional, erratic, and chaotic. I have no idea what they watched on television because I was busy serving customers, trying to make a living.
When I returned to journalism they came home from school to an empty house, and probably fought fit to scare the neighbours.
Starved of the thrills their Russell childhood had delivered, in Auckland they'd sneak to Newmarket and flatten themselves against the inside of the train tunnel when a train went through. Today they're all independent, successful, very close-knit and adorable. Why? I think balance is vital.
Their occasional viewing of violent movies, or my too-casual attitude to their health, was countered by being surrounded by books, treated like adults, and massive doses of love.
Children are far more resilient and savvy than many adults give them credit for. They can survive the most appalling crises; we don't need to constantly wrap them in cotton wool. Speaking from experience, mothering is the toughest job on the planet. Isn't it time people like McCoskrie, who sometimes has no idea who he's condemning, gave parents a break?
* * *
The Ferryman
The co-producer of The Ferryman, Matthew Metcalfe, has described last week's Coddington column and references to the movie as "patently
wrong".
He says the film has taken nearly $US1m in international sales and box office receipts and has sold to over 38 territories. It was released theatrically overseas where it opened at number four at the box office and in the top 10 in Singapore and Malaysia.
At the time of its release it was also the 8th highest grossing film internationally of the 26 films funded by the NZFC since 2000.
Metcalfe says the decision to release the film to DVD in NZ was made by the film's Australian owners for independent reasons. He says theatrical support at exhibitor screenings was positive.
* * *
New Zealand Film Commission - correction
The New Zealand Film Commission invested $1million in The Ferryman, not $6 million, as reported in Deborah Coddington's Herald on Sunday column on November 30. (Some funding was also provided by the NZ Film Production Fund Trust).
The film Trouble Is My Business was granted $25,000 in post-production funding by the commission, in a decision independently assessed before being approved by the commission's board.
The commission says it uses an "industry standard formula" to estimate the home audience for movies on DVD.
And the commission has given significant financial support to all five of New Zealand's most successful domestic films and financial support for nine of the top 10 NZ feature films.
