the abandoning of children was wide spread and widely accepted by civil and church authorities from ancient times through the middle ages. In many large families the abandoning of babies was a matter of survival. Many who didnt die from starvation and exposure were used as servants and prostitutes. In New Zealand, regrettably, there is a diminishing number of people who appear to regard children as precious and deserving of particular planning, care and attention, in their own right, by virtue of their vulnerability, dependence and their potential. The principal of Whangarei Boys High School, Maurice Dean, blames the corruption of the young on the lack of stability, love and guidance in many homes.Time has brought dramatic improvement in some ways. Yet some things seem unchanging. In a orphans home, the boys slept in dormitories,Bedwetting was common among the younger boys, who were always punished for it. Punishments were frequent and severe young boys were beaten for trivial offence with a knotted rope on their bare backs.(The book Looking Back)One hundred years later in October 1988, there are reports of a four year old boy being beaten with a steel rod from a clothes dryer, on more than one occasion, for bedwetting.The extent of child abuse and child neglect is far greater than New Zealand society accepts or is willing to accept it to be. The formal response to the problem is feeble, at a legal level, at an intervention level, and at a prevention level.(Lawyer, Simon Jefferson)Do we shudder, and turn our backs to the battered children? One might think so, judging by the total lack of public response.Most feared were cords electric blanket and vacuum cleaner cords and a couple of times tent poles. I spent my ninth birthday in hospital with stitches in my face where my mother had opened me up with her fist. I just lived in complete fear of my mother.(Child's story, reported to Evening Post)In biblical times, boys had ful...
