Why am I classed as a single earner paying ACC and income tax when employed but classed as a couple when out of work?
Why not? I fully agree that the family is the correct unit for a household in NZ. A family based on a husband and a wife, not something based on the latest metro-sexual whim of the day.
"outmoded social concepts" such as assuming that everyone lives in single-income families where dad goes out to work and mum stays home with the children
Nothing outmoded about that. Pity there aren't more families based on those concepts.
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You know, I was thinking about "outmoded social concepts", or whatever else they're called, last night. It was after seeing a film Called, A Pefect World. Good film, stars Clint Eastwood, Laura Dern, Kevin Costner among others.
Anyhoo, this film was made in 1993 and addressed many of the issues of how families fall apart and what happens to all the loose pieces. Since there is so much waffle about the anti-smacking law of late I noticed the references to abusive parents more than the others, but in hindsight now, it questioned the very basis of what we see as normal - without passing judgement or offereing solutions.
I was left with the personal conclusion that yes, the "normal" family is good, but in reality it does go very badly wrong sometimes. But I could not condemn it completely. And I wouldn't publicly and openly, in the way polticians do, promote one way over another.
The questions raised made me think about the things I'd seen in my life, in different countries and places and that some unusual-to-me arrangements have worked and failed with a frequency matching the mum dad two kids and a dog model.
I think NZ gets a bit over enamoured with it's own theories sometimes. So much "proof" all in the form of crisp white papered reports. But in real life, things happen far more fluidly.
In the end I think we have to give up the kind of politics that tells everyone how to live their lives in such exacting and personal ways. There is a lot of bad in the world, but there seems to be at least an equal amount of good, and sometimes, regardless of the old saying that all it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing, we have to just walk on from situaions we will never control or make better and just plain accept we aren't god.
Live your life as you see fit and bear the consequences, but also bear in mind another man may not share your values. The world never got any better through the interference of control freaks.
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