Are Free Contraceptives Really the Answer?
Growing up unwanted, neglected, abused, and in poverty is too great a debit balance in the bank account of life to not give more serious thought about the children we bring into the world, and why.
by Juliet Bonnay
May 13, 2012
As New Zealand’s welfare bashing continues over the Government’s proposal to offer free contraception to female welfare beneficiaries, political hopeful Colin Craig has stuck his boots into New Zealand’s ‘promiscuous’ women by opposing such a move. Well after all, he argues, why should a 70-year-old woman who has been monogamous all her life, and other taxpayers, pay for blatant promiscuity in a society that, during my own teenage years, shamed women for having a child out of wedlock?
Somewhere along the line Craig has forgotten that the taxpayers already fork out to support the pregnancies no one wants from such ‘immoral’ acts. Also forgotten is the lack of responsibility shown by the men towards emotionally and financially supporting the children they father with these ‘promiscuous’ women. Why should they take any responsibility when the government takes care of that? Double standards still exist, it seems. Continue reading…
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Depression Has A Safety Net
February 07, 2012
Whenever negative thoughts send me spiralling down towards depression, I ask myself, “What can I appreciate about this day in my life?”
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The Spirit of Christmas
December 21, 2011
Have too many of us forgotten what Christmas is really about? Think for a moment that this can be a time for giving other things as well – non-material things that can ultimately have a much higher value.
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Gifts Found in Unlikely Places
October 13, 2011
What you may call a disaster could actually become the greatest gift in your life. This is what I learned when Zeehaen, an eighteen-meter steel yacht my husband and I had bought to sail the world, foundered on a sandbar while at anchor.
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Mothers Who Play With ‘Dolls’
September 15, 2011
“Here comes Pretty Woman…Paisley…” announced the host on Toddlers and Tiaras. Out struts three-year-old Paisley dressed as Julia Roberts who plays a prostitute in ‘Pretty Woman’. She is wearing a look-alike outfit: thigh-high black boots, a white top that shows her bare toddler tummy, a skin tight blue mini-skirt, and a yellow wig.
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Living On Molesworth Station
August 09, 2011
Molesworth Station in New Zealand’ South Island was carved by ancient glaciers into broad u-shaped valleys, conical and round-topped hills, moraines and corries. It is an ongoing visual feast spreading west from the knife-edged ridges of the Inland Kaikoura Ranges. And I was lucky enough to live there for a year!
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Promiscuity: Loose Morals or Searching for Love?
July 26, 2011
A Timaru gynaecologist made a call to “stigmatise” New Zealand’s promiscuous women in an attempt to change their reputation as being “the most promiscuous women in the world.” But there are things he doesn’t know that lead to this behaviour.
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National Standards and What Education is ‘Really’ About
June 19, 2011
Podcast: Des Mann, founding principal of Green Bay High School in Auckland, New Zealand talks about some alternatives to National Standards and what education is “really about anyway.”
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The ADD Myth
June 09, 2011
A teacher, Peter Giddens, gives his take on the ADD epidemic affecting steadily increasing numbers of boys in schools.
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About School
June 10, 2011
This post includes a poem handed into a teacher by a senior in high school shortly before he committed suicide. It highlights the frustration of many students at school and unfortunately, mine too.
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Making Dreams Come True
May 30, 2011
Mark and Rowan Sommerset had a dream of creating children’s books when they first met ten years ago. Read about how they achieved their dream and won the coveted Children’s Choice Award in the 2011 New Zealand Post Children’s Book of the Year Awards, or listen to Mark’s story in a podcast. A podcast of an interview with Mark is included at the end of this post.
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Christchurch, and what can be learned from disasters
March 05, 2011
Pema Chödrön, a Buddhist nun who wrote When Things Fall Apart, stated that we need chaos and disasters in our lives to “wake us up”. As terrible as it appears, this is sometimes what we need to change the whole course of our lives for the better…
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