KEY POINTS:
Right, that's it. I've had enough.
I'm sick and tired of hearing about it, as close to self-destructing over the matter as I've ever been before. I reckon it's time we mums stood up and were counted.
Another week, another baby brutalised by non-accidental injuries. Another tiny life hanging by a thread as thin as a spider's web. Another person's potential threatened by the apparent horrific actions of others.
No doubt another terrible story of neglect, illness, carelessness, indifference, incompetence, involving a defenceless 4-month-old baby - even writing those words fills my brain with incomprehensibility.
So I'm saying it's time we mums did something about it. I'm sick of talking, tired of my heart filling with angst when yet another case comes to light. I'm over marches and special reports, I've had enough of child advocates making excuses and society sectors blaming government, booze, drugs, poverty, violence, God, Satan, hopelessness. I want action.
Let's stop buggering around and hit this excruciating pandemic head-on. Let's get some balls. Here's what I'm contemplating. Whoever it is in charge of ensuring our kids are safe in their own homes are welcome to come to mine. Be you cop, social worker, psychologist, psychiatrist, Plunket nurse, midwife, doctor, geez, even the Prime Minister herself - I want you at my place quick smart.
Come over for a cuppa and check out every single room in my house. Have a lingering look at the bedrooms my three children sleep in. Are they warm and dry? Do the beds have sheets? Is there enough clothing in the drawers? Do they have a book on their bedside tables? Have a good gawk in the kitchen, inspect the fridge and pantry.
Make sure I have cereal in my cupboards and milk on the bench with the Weetbix. Inspect my oven, rummage through my recycling, and count the number of vegetable species I have in the chiller. Feel free to pry. I don't mind.
Have I vacuumed recently? Is the shower habitable? Do we have soap in the bathroom? Are there broken windows? Do empty beer bottles litter an overgrown lawn?
You see, I want you to see my home as my children do ... warts and all, with dust on the table, crumbs on the lino and sticky fingermarks on the fridge.
Have a private talk to my kids. Go on. Make sure they don't have sores over their bodies, or bruises where there shouldn't be. If you notice they seem backward in their development, cower when I approach them, or exhibit behaviour that any average person knows is inappropriate for kids in this country, for goodness sake write it down.
Talk to their teachers. Do they have lunch every day? Do they wear shoes in the winter? Have they ever told someone at school that they are being hit, or beaten, or touched, or raped? Do they look forward to coming home to me at 3pm?
Chat with my neighbours, go on, I insist. If I yell and scream incessantly at my kids morning, noon and night, I want you to know. If my children constantly sport black eyes, cigarette burns on their arms or have their hair pulled out by the roots, add it to the list.
Come out shopping with us. When my 10-year-old sulks that she can't have that latest pair of skinny jeans from Farmers, take note. Do I, in front of other shoppers, call her a f**king s**t that's going to get a hiding when she gets home, the stupid f**king little b***h? Do I?
Hang out with my kids' friends ... I dare you! Does my 15-year-old supply cannabis to his schoolmates? Does my 13-year-old enjoy torturing animals? Does my 10-year-old boast to her friends that she's sexually active?
You might think I'm joking. You'd be wrong. Until every single household with children in this country is inspected, we are never going to overcome this terrible scourge of child abuse.
Until we all fling open our doors and invite inspection, welcome our opportunity to show how much time, effort and energy we good parents pour into bringing up our children properly, then those who don't give a toss or don't want us to see the damage they are doing to their own kids can hide behind doors, closed curtains and pulled blinds.
I was just 19 when I covered my first High Court case as a junior reporter. She was nearly 7 weeks old, a perfect little angel in a blue stretch-and-grow, white matinee jacket and bonnet. I remember she had wisps of brown hair, translucent skin ... oh, and two huge holes punched into her skull, inflicted by her father because she cried too much.
Eva would be 22 years old now, ready to take on the world, to achieve everything she dreamed. Maybe she'd be a parent or maybe she'd merely be a chip off the old block. We'll never know, because her father left her to die in her bassinet, to be found days later by neighbours.
When one mother beats her child or watches while someone else does, we all do it. Things have got to change, and we've got to become better neighbours, friends, sisters, mothers, grandmothers, colleagues. Stand up. Open your mouth. Say "No more". Please.
