The court has reached its verdict. The marchers have gone home. The politicians and media have done their usual hypocritical hand-wringing. But the question remains – where was Moko’s dad?
A father is supposed to be there to protect his children. A father is supposed to be there to help their mother look after the family. A father is supposed to provide for and love his family.
So where was Moko’s dad? We have no idea. We have no idea because the question was never asked. It never is. In all the national breast-beating that happens whenever such a tragedy occurs, the real issue is never addressed. Why are so many New Zealand children left without the care of a natural father? Why have we allowed a relationship culture to become embedded which accepts as normal the regular dropping in and out of relationships and frequent changing of partners? How is this supposed to build strong and loving families?
These are the questions which should be asked. But instead the focus is always on the failure of social agencies, the need for more education or awareness campaigns, tougher sentences or more money to be spent coordinating ever more welfare programmes. No-one ever wants to face the real issue.
The politicians don’t because they know it will be an uncomfortable conversation with the electorate. It may lose them votes. Many would also have to revisit their ideological commitment to socially liberal policies that have undermined marriage and family life. They would have to admit that their rejection of traditional Christian morality around family life has not led to a celebration of diversity. It has led to dead children.
The media don’t want to face the real issue because as soon as their current affairs journalists finish shedding tears about the latest tragedy, it is back to business as usual. And business as usual means more trash programming that normalises and promotes the very values that are rotting our family life. If it is not some reality show with contestants hopping in and out of bed with each other, it is a soap fueled by a focus on continual relationship churn or a “comedy” pushing the lie that the new liberal morality is all fun and laughter.
Sadly the reality for our children is very different. Until we are willing to face that, all the national soul searching will produce nothing but more hypocrisy.
Ewen McQueen
May 2016
RenewNZ 
Thank you Ewen. Posted this link to my Facebook page.
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The other question to ask is was Moko’s dad being prevented from looking after his son. I wouldn’t be surprised if there in some of these horrific cases where the domestic violence act and agents have played a part in removing the biological Dad from all contact – and the child has then been killed by someone else.
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Dear Ewan
Thank you for your excellent post, our community does not recognise that child abuse begins in the womb.
Kind regards
Ken Orr
Right to Life
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We seem to have created a society where being a “solo mum” is OK. Some children now do not know who their father is. Some kids grow up with several siblings, all with different fathers. Lots of kids grow up in a home where the only source of income is the DPB and every time mum has another kid, she gets more money. There seems to be little accountability for how the DPB is spent. Teachers are feeding kids at school. Why? What happened to adoption or foster care? But the social services got that wrong too by ignoring abuse in foster homes – so kids are better with their birth mother. Yeah right. I think it is time that the DPB was limited to support for one child only with full accountability for feeding, clothing protecting and nurturing that child.
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Bob McCroskrie was attacked by the militant pc left for talking about better outcomes for stable two parent families. How dare he impugn the excellent child rearing of “non traditional’ families ?was the rhetorical question. These stats give the answer: 8 times more like likely to suffer violent attack, 50 to eighty times more likely to be murdered when there is 1 or more non biological parent in the home of under 5 year olds. The widespread bad habit of maori parents letting other people do the work of bringing up their own children is the root cause of Mokos death and all the other deaths of Maori children over the last few years. The Kahuis are one example and their are many more.
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