Solo Mothers Public Enemy Number One

I love how the finger pointing for our poor Unicef rating (which shows we love to hurt and beat our Children) is now being directed at Solo mothers and NOT poverty.

I’m sorry, what did you say there mate? Our shocking social stats have nothing to do with Poverty? It’s all now Solo Mothers and dole bludgers who blow their cash on ciggies and booze? 80 000 kids daily go to school hungry, 5000 a year are taken to hospital for malnutrition and none of this apparently has anything to do with poverty?

Our denial is breathtaking.

Finger-pointing follows Unicef report
New Zealand's soaring rate of one-parent families may be partly to blame for the woeful state of child welfare, suggest community workers and academics. A United Nations report on children's well-being last week ranked New Zealand at the bottom of a list of 24 developed nations for child deaths from accidents and injuries, and second-worst for its teen pregnancy rate. Great Potentials Foundation chief executive Lesley Max, whose organisation runs several family support initiatives, said family instability and poor parenting were key factors in bad outcomes for children. "Poor parenting affects many generations ... I am not interested in being a moraliser but we have an obligation as a society to inform young people about the consequences of their actions in ways they can understand." According to the 2006 census, just over 30% of New Zealand families are headed by a single parent - three times the 1976 rate. Among Maori, according to a 2000 Ministry of Social Development report, the rate was 50%.