o owe their misfortune to the habits of their parents. Maternal drinking of alcohol, smoking and glue-sniffing in the antenatal period and parental smoking post-natally can all have a disastrous effect on the long-term health of their children.Immunisation of children has fallen to alarming levels. An Auckland Star editorial in March 1987 drew attention to the major problem of immunisation. It showed 50% of children were immunised against measles in some parts of the country, whereas, by contrast, in the United States, children are not allowed to start school without evidence of their inoculation against measles.Looking in-depth at the number of accidents in New Zealand, it is shocking. It has been traditional in New Zealand to regard accidents to children as something inevitable, and not preventable, yet the fact that a child in Sweden, Denmark or England, to name a few, is less likely to die as the result of an accident than a child in New Zealand, questions this vague hypothesis. A radio news broadcast, mid-1988, asks for someone to collect a child who had fallen our of a turning car, apparently without the driver noticing. The child could be collected from Otahuhu police station.A troupe of monkeys in a dusty Asian town, moves towards a fountain. The young ones want to play in the water. The mothers allow them to play and drink, but each mother grasps the tail of her young one, so it cant come to harm. Instinct.One of the main reasons why children are more at risk of accidents in New Zealand is that there is a cultural tradition which makes children responsible for their own saftey, rather than it being the responsibility of an adult. Parents are responsible, not children. Parent vigilance on our roads is as necessary as animal parental vigilance is in the wild. Too many humans in New Zealand have lost that animal instinct to shepherd their children, to sniff the sir or prick up their ears to listen for danger. Previously...
