Miscellany

On the death of Nia Glassie

When my first child, Gina, was born I was in a daze of love. Any previous love, for parents, for my husband, was a pale, weak thing beside this fierce bright flame that now consumed me. Her father Glen and I carefully unwrapped the hospital blanket to examine Gina in the minutest detail. We counted her toes and fingers over and over. “So here you are”, we said in wonder. “So this is you.”

Glen was not a smoker, but he knew what was expected of a first-time Dad and handed out cigars with rash abandon. A traditional Scot of the old kind, yes, he had been hoping for a boy; but, like me, what we got seemed right and inevitable. Gina belonged to us.

We were lucky enough to rediscover this miracle of the newborn with another beautiful daughter. That daughter’s special gift to me has been four grandchildren of wondrous and diverse personality. If home is where your heart is, then I don’t need any other reason to live in New Zealand.

When Gina was only a few months old, a neighbour’s young son crept up to her pram and emptied a bucket of sand over her sleeping form. I now realize that he was sadly disturbed; but I was only 20 then, and I still remember that moment when I heard Gina’s muffled squawk of distress and went outside to see a mound of wet grey sand where my rosy-cheeked babe had been.

Once we had cleaned her up and the clinic nurse had checked her over, I went to see his parents. If he had been older than seven; if she had been permanently harmed; I am not sure I could have contained my blind rage that someone, anyone, should dare to lay a hand upon my own darling girl.

That fierce protective love that woke in me when my first child was born turned me into a different woman. What I had never been able to demand for myself, I was now determined to insist on for my children. I knew I would fight to the death to protect any child of mine.

With love for my own child came increased empathy for the health and well-being of other children temporarily in my care, by choice or by circumstance. I feel rage daily at how children are treated in this harsh, unloving world. Chinese girl babies abandoned in orphanages, Indian fetuses aborted, for ‘being the wrong sex’. Romanian orphans driven to madness through failure of the most basic care and attention that is every newborn’s birthright. Young girls genitally mutilated without cause in a barbarous ritual of circumcision.

And babies born daily to mothers and fathers who can’t be bothered to pull on a condom before they engage in random, disastrous couplings that have nothing to do with love.

“And then I fell for another baby …”

You hear that phrase over and over, as if getting pregnant is an accident waiting to strike any female down without cause or consent. Here’s the world news: pregnancy results from unprotected sex. Contraception has been regarded as reliable for nearly two centuries. If you need to know how it works, send me an e-mail and I’ll fill you in.

I’ll begin by stating that you’re not ready to be a parent at 14, 15 or 16. You’re not ready to be a parent or care for a child until you’re ready to commit to a steady relationship and to mature responsibility for the safety, happiness and well-being of a totally helpless human being.

The slogan for the Family Planning campaign in the UK used to be, “Every child a wanted child.”

Was Nia Glassie ever a wanted child? I doubt it. She was simply yet one more accidental offspring of an irresponsible and uncaring mother. Lisa Kuka, at 34, is young enough to go on and breed more children to be the playthings of fate. I hope she is offered sterilization in jail, and I would believe in her court-displayed remorse much more if she agreed to it.

I saw no signs of remorse from William and Michael Curtis, nor from Oriwa Kemp. I saw only sub-moronic indifference. I wish the law of the land could enforce sterilization on them, too.

I don’t care what brought them to do the unspeakable; they are probably a lost cause. Nia Glassie was not. Like our own loved and wanted children she came into this world with nothing except the wonderful, confiding gift of herself. Nia Glassie was trashed and mis-treated and thrown away in what should have been the protective security of her home.

Hone Kaa, head of the child advocacy group Te Kahui Mana Ririki, says, “We can be sure Nia isn’t going to be the last (to die like this). We might pray that she is; but in the end it is the behavior of adults that secures the safety of our children. We have got to learn to nark.”

We have got to learn compassion, and how and when to act.

posted by Jenny Argante @ 4:12 PM