Bringing Up Kids in New Zealand [2004]
Children are precious to New Zealanders. In our 2003 survey, 72% agreed that "having children is the most important thing you can do in your life". But what kind of precious?
On one hand, the middle class majority seems resigned to the fact that many New Zealand children grow up in poverty - even though these will be the kids whose taxes pay for their future pensions and health care.
As long as poverty doesn't mean living on a rubbish dump, or going without food, our collective conscience is happy not to involve itself in the financial or emotional circumstances of lower income families.
Meanwhile we have the image in the media of middle class professional parents, almost hysterically determined to secure any advantage for their children, through education, talent development and the mass purchase of playthings and experiences.
This forms a counterpoint to the reality of many households where children are often left to their own devices by parents exhausted from their efforts to feather the family nest.
They're obviously too exhausted to have lots of children. As in most Western countries, the birth rate is falling,
The age at which New Zealand women have their first child rose as much in the ten years from 1992 to 2002 as it did in the 20 years from 1971 to 1991. In social change terms that's dramatic.
It has been driven by the same potent combination of education and contraception that made feminism popular in the seventies. The emerging generation of parents is more likely to believe "you should have your life first before you have children".
"we have the image in the media of middle class professional parents, almost hysterically determined to secure any advantage for their children"
