Rights for parents too

Press, 1 March 1984, Page 14

Rights for parents too

ROBYN JENKIN of Christchurch today begins a series based on the “Parents’ Charter,” a list of parents’ rights pinned to the kitchen cupboard in her home. She begins by looking at the right of parents to act like human begins.

A father of teen-agers once said to me, “I’d be really worried if my family didn’t rebel as teen-agers.” And a small voice inside secretly agrees with him. At least in principle, though sometimes the reality is hard to take. Another item on the “Parents’ Charter” states that parents, “Have the right to be free from political indoctrination. It may well be that the world would be a finer place if all possessions were held in common; the police abolished, pot legalised, schools handed over to the control of pupils and Parliament turned into a commune, but parents are not necessarily shambling morons if they hope that the revolution does not come in their own lifetime,” I am a fairly conservative person and it’s hard to look back to a time when family, children and possessions did not seem very important. To a time when I could go away for months with all I

needed in one small shoulder pack, with not even an aspirin in case I got a headache. To a time at university when we helped with crazy escapades like dismantling a car and reassembling it on top of the old cloisters, or stringing a line of underwear from the university tower to the tower of the museum across the road. It all came back to me a few years ago. We were watching a television programme about the Students’ Congress at Curious Cove in the Sounds. There they were all sprawled out on the floor, bare feet and all, and as an ultra-conservative friend said later, “Did you see that scruffy lot of students on the television? And to think we pay for their education, etc., etc.” I thought it better to keep quiet, because nothing had changed. Over my ’varsity years I spent three wonderful weeks at the Students’ Congress. We thought we

were going to right the world. Nowadays, bare feet and scruffiness are the norm, but then it was almost our act of rebellion against society. To lie on the floor for lectures with bare feet, skimpy shorts and even skimpier tops. An occasional rebellious beard, though it was still the short back and sides for most. We would show them!

Some went on to become Rhodes Scholars. They now represent university professors, leaders in all kinds of scientific, medical, industrial and agricultural research, doctors, lawyers, politicians, editors, and educators of our young. Their faces are familiar on television when some expert is called upon in a particular field. Yet all in their youth would have been considered a bit rebellious.

Mornings and evenings were spent at a lecture by some well-known personality. A few I remember. The poet A. R. D. Fairburn, the economist, Bill Sutch, a Commissioner of Police, Vice-Chancellor of the university, trade unionist, the German Ambassador. Just a few of the many who came gladly to spend a week with a bunch of rebels. Many of the things they said still surface occasionally giving food for thought just as they did so many years ago. I would go home from each congress fired with the need for change, aware perhaps for the first time just how cocooned we were in this country. I was ready to right all the wrongs. No doubt my parents sighed — they had heard it all before.

But there were differences. We lived in a secure society. The wrongs we were concerned about were seldom here in New Zealand. We agonised over the blacks of South Africa or the poor of South America, but little of poverty touched us personally. Sure, most students had to find money for board and books but there were always the wool stores, the wharves or the freezing works. Many of the girls had annual holiday jobs at Aulsebrooks. None of these job outlets are now available to students.

We could aspire to a particular career and know that all that stood between us and our goal was personal hard work. No suggestion that when the goal had been reached there would be no job waiting. If there were social injustices close to home we were not really aware of them but had they come to the surface we

And looking back, the taxpayers’ money was well spent. I should say about 90 per cent of that group now hold positions of responsibility throughout the country in their particular fields.

would have been right in there, rallying to the cause whether it was marching with banners or holding up the traffic with a peaceful protest. The funny thing is, that though, in those student days, we were all consid-

ered slightly pink in our beliefs, the faces of old friends I see on the television now cover the whole spectrum from darkest red to deepest blue. So when my teen-agers rebel and try to indoctrinate me with the latest revolu-

tionary propaganda, the old tired side of me says, "Enough. I’ve heard it all before,” but the young student self, still smouldering inside, is filled with secret admiration. They’re beginning to think for themselves.