Work leave time for kids
> Parents invest money not time in kids > Chasing work hours and dollars > Family life needs more attention
One in five mums and dads are unfit to be parents because they don’t have the means or life skills, according to WA child health expert and former Australian of the Year Fiona Stanley.
Many others could not devote enough time to their kids because of excessive job commitments.
Prof Stanley, an adviser to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, also criticised government policy on paid parental leave.
She said a national effort - on the scale of the climate change movement—was needed to protect the future of Australian children.
“We need an Al Gore for child development,” said Prof Stanley, founder of the Institute for Child Health Research. “There are a worrying number of threats to children’s health in today’s society. If we don’t respond to these challenges . . . we will be looking at our generation, my generation, as being the last generation that lives longer than its parents. If you look at the overall trend in many problems, they are actually showing no improvement and some of them are getting dramatically worse.’’
Mental illness, obesity, asthma and substance abuse are the biggest health risks for children, Prof Stanley said. But cultural changes over the past 30 years - “that’s when all the data started to go belly-up” - were having just as big an impact.
“Family life has changed a lot,” she said. “There have been incredible changes in the workplace which might have been good for people’s income, but are not actually that good for parenting. You’ve got more hours of work, you’ve got more women working, but without men, or the business world or government actually coming forward with really good child care. So who’s responsible for the children when a high proportion of women are working? That’s been very detrimental to children.”
Paid parental leave, which was being assessed by the Federal Government, was crucial, Prof Stanley said.
Prof Stanley’s comments follow last Sunday’s claims by Police Commissioner Karl O’Callaghan in The Sunday Times that some parents are so obsessed with wealth they are neglecting to spend time with their children.
“It’s very common for parents these days to want to invest money in their kids, but not time,’’ Mr O’Callaghan said. “They would rather throw money at their kids, buy them a PlayStation, shut them up and put them in a corner rather than take them out on a picnic on the weekend and give up half a Sunday. That’s something we’ve lost with a generation.”’
