Dialogue: Children's rights? No, just burdens

One of the most poisonous effects of political correctness on the community at large is the idea of children's rights, and I am persuaded that until this cancer is excised from our society, the problems we are having with young people will continue only to get worse.

Among the most insistent purveyors of child rights are a shadowy outfit pretentiously called Youth Law Tino Rangatiratanga Taitamariki (the Maori bit means "the rights of the child") and the accident-prone Government agency which in its present incarnation calls itself the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services.

These organisations lately successfully complained to the Press Council about a picture on our front page last June 12. The heading over the picture read "Child speedster run off the road" and the caption said: "Joyride over: The 11-year-old girl sits safely in the back of a squad car after pursuing police cars forced her stolen vehicle into a brick fencepost to make her stop." In an effort to mask her identity, the girl's eyes had been blocked out by a black rectangle.

In their complaint they referred to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Well, of course they would, for it seems that both Youth Law and CYFS use that particular piece of bureaucratic toilet paper as their sacred charter.

In its decision, the Press Council - having considered the law as it stands and its own guidelines - quite properly ruled that the child should have been protected from being identified and from the consequences of that disclosure.

And that's where I reckon the law is an ass. Because, if we are going to insist that children have rights as if they were adults, we must also insist that they take responsibility also and be prepared to take the consequences of their actions.

The complainants based their case on three grounds: the right to privacy, the need for particular care in reporting on children and young people, and the need to take care in photographic selection and treatment.

CYFS complained: "The young girl was identified by both her extended family in the community (some of whom were unaware of her arrest), by peers and other residents of West Auckland. The repercussions of the publication included emotional distress for all family members and, in particular, for younger siblings in the school environment."

Makes you weep, doesn't it? Here we have an 11-year-old brat who pinched a car, refused to stop for police cars with lights flashing and sirens screaming, endangered her own life and the lives of others and has to be run off the road, and CYFS is whinging because parents, siblings, relatives and other people in her community got to find out about it.

And some of them suffered emotional distress. Well, so they should have. It is and always has been a fact of real life that when one member of a family gets into trouble, the others suffer emotionally as a result. And the upshot is that they, their friends and neighbours, their schoolteachers and ministers all get together to put the erring one to rights and to make damn sure it doesn't happen again.

It's called family and community spirit, which is sadly lacking in our society these days, and the reason for that has much to do with the misguided precepts of political correctness - particularly in this case privacy (read secrecy) and children's rights (read we know better than you how you should bring up your kids).

The people who trumpet these precepts are the same people who believe that parents should not be allowed to smack children to discipline them; that pre-pubescent boys and girls should be fed child pornography dressed up as "sex education"; that girls as young as 12 and 13 should be given abortions without their parents' knowledge; and that boys as young as 13 should be allowed to visit a known paedophile unhindered - destructive beliefs that force children to behave as adults before they've even had time to be children.

But political correctness is all about having your cake and eating it, too. It's all about rights without responsibilities; about "tolerance," which really means do whatever you please and if anyone is offended, just tell them they're intolerant; and about situational ethics, which means you can change the rules at any time to justify whatever you have done, are doing or are about to do and don't anyone dare tell you it's harmful, bad or wrong.

Children are not given the legal right to drive until they are 15, or the right to drink alcohol and vote until they are 18. We wouldn't even consider letting a young child light a fire, for instance, or operate a chainsaw. We do this because we consider they are not capable of engaging in those activities safely until they are "old enough."

Perhaps it is time for us to reconsider some of the other "rights" we have inflicted on children and to come to the logical conclusion that if they are unable to take the responsibilities that come with those rights, they are not rights at all.

They are, in fact, burdens that our kids shouldn't have to bear.

* garth_george@herald.co.nz