Horror over child suicide rate surge
The NZ HERALD today provides us with appalling statistics on child suicides in NZ.The article quotes Prime Minister John Key,
“suicide was a complex issue and the Government didn’t have all the answers.
Well, that may well be because it is not asking the right questions? He goes on to say,
“When a young person takes their life, as a country you mourn that, because as adults we know that there’s always a solution to problems.
Yes John, there are solutions once you know the problem. If you don’t understand the problem or choose to ignore it then a solution will never eventuate.
Misguided research may indicate that a lot of these children are victims of bullying and concluded that this is the factor that needs addressing. However, I believe that it is the lack of self esteem these children possess that makes them unable to handle the effects of bullying and many other negative factors that a young life encounters. This issue may well be due to the lack of fathering. If this is found to be the case then the solution is to change the existing system so that fathering holds a far more prominent position in society than is does in the present moment.
MOMA, if Government funded, could conduct research using the methodologies of quantitative, qualitative and participatory research thereby giving us a clearer understanding what role the lack of fathering has in these suicides.
I may be wrong in my reasoning but on the basis of statistics showing the vast number of solo mothers would it not be prudent to investigate the issue and at least commission MOMA to conduct it’s own research and the results made public?
Some further data supplied in the article is-:
Total suicides over five years – 2717
Key findings:
– The number of suicides recorded by the Coronial Services Unit in the year to June 30 was 547, down 11 on the previous 12 months
– 74 per cent of all suicides in New Zealand were male
– Increase in suicides in the 15-19 age group – from 56 to 80
– The most common method of suicide (61 percent) was hanging, followed by poisoning and overdose
– 28 percent of people who killed themselves were unemployed
How do they expect to make changes or identify problem areas if this is the only statistics that is going to be made public. We need to start to identify why these people are dying. Its very serious. kids as young as 6 (according to the herald story) are committing suicide.
It appears to me John Key isnt really doing anything to address this ‘growing’ tread. If it is indeed from lack of fathering, then this needs addressing.
More stats are needed to address this. important one is surrounding care the child/teen is receiving. Is the suicide because of being bullied.
Bullying is a major problem which really has never been addressed and is so out of hand now. I remember when I was a kid, I was bullied at school and even got beaten up at the local creek (its no longer there now). Its puts fear in you.
There is alot more research to be done thats for sure.
Comment by Joe Public — Tue 4th September 2012 @ 9:32 am
During the period of the Clark led labour government New Zealand’s suicide figure were actively suppressed as the numbers continued to steadily grow. Although this practice has stopped the article above is the first time I have seen any acknowledgement in our media of the number of male suicides. What hasn’t stopped is the spin doctoring of the news to make this a youth problem and now wait for it – a MÄÂori problem.
There is still an abject and collective failure of the media and the administration to acknowledge the known and underlying causes. While that situation is condoned and allowed to continue men will suffer death not by suicide but through criminal nuisance. A large number of these male suicides would not happen if the anti-male social policy and practices used in this country were stopped.
It’s comparable say – to a group of people with blow torches backing a man toward a cliff, where he has two choices, get burned or jump – oh look at that, he committed suicide, wasn’t our fault HE jumped.
This inherent lack of judgement seems to have pervaded both society and the media and logically, until people wake up to this and give the issues behind male suicide considerable and considered acknowledgment, the number of suicides will not decline, and neither will the increasing number of men who choose to make another country home.
Comment by Down Under — Tue 4th September 2012 @ 9:47 am
Whilst I acknowledge it’s not the only reason I get the impression that 2 underfathered Prime Minister’s in a row – Socialist-Feminist Clarke, and now Key means there’s a significant blind spot when it comes to seeing the massive impact fatherlessness is having on NZ – especially amongst younger males who form the bulk of the suicide statistics.
BTW Peter Dunne, Happy belated Father’s Day.
Comment by Skeptic — Tue 4th September 2012 @ 10:33 am
Even if you said nearly all the unemployed suicides were males; that would leave at least 300 working males who found it necessary to terminate their existence in the past 12 months. But of the 405 male suicides I would also have to ask how many were related to a youth suicide either as the father or close relative. I recall some years back a string of father-son suicides mainly amongst farmers, but all were the subject of IRD harassment. I am sure this was in the pre-child support era. If the media continue to use these single minded pitches then certain questions will never get asked and certain statistics will not be sought but we can always ask for answers here.
300 working males a year – Has your workplace been affected by suicide?
If it has – post something below.
Do you know of a father-son suicide?
If you do – post something below.
If you are a son or a daughter and your father committed suicide when you were not able to maintain a relationship with him and weren’t able to see him because of separation?
Tell us your story – post something below.
Do you know a male who has committed suicide?
If you have an idea what triggered the suicide – post something below.
Have you provided evidence to an inquest as to what triggered a suicide and felt that the cause has been ignored and swept under the carpet?
If you have post – something below
Comment by Down Under — Tue 4th September 2012 @ 11:13 am
Hi Skeptic,
George Clark was a very proud dad of Helen and he died not to long ago.
Helen grew up on the family farm and while she did study in Auckland (Epsom Girl’s Grammar I think) I know she can not in any way be described as underfathered.
Comment by Allan Harvey — Tue 4th September 2012 @ 5:47 pm
Opps I demised George incorrectly. He remains a proud and involved Father. Helen’s mother died about 12 months ago.
Comment by allan harvey — Tue 4th September 2012 @ 5:54 pm
I think skeptic has got it right. I have it from an ardent feminist that Helen was born of a virgin and was sent to deliver women from the bondage of men in ‘God’s Own’. She is to one day head the United Nations and destroy the evil of masculinity in the world once and for all, as promised by the deity Lesbos.
Comment by Kamikaze — Tue 4th September 2012 @ 6:07 pm
Men as a group have a suicide rate several orders greater than any other group, yet neither the coroner nor Dunnenothing suggests that men need special attention regarding suicide. Why is this?
Comment by Hans Laven — Tue 4th September 2012 @ 9:31 pm
Allan,
you and I must have very different definitions of fathering.
‘I think I was equidistant from both my parents,’ Clark told interviewer Virginia Myers for the book Head and Shoulders.
Clark’s social phobias were aggravated when her parents sent her as a boarder to Epsom Girls Grammar. From age 14 she grew even more distant from her christian church going National supporting father. Close sources say she also has an elephantine memory for disagreements and holding grudges.
Doesn’t sound like someone who got a whole lot of close tender fathering does it.
I certainly don’t see how she did anything for biological fathers at all except perpetuate and aggravate feminist misandry in NZ during her terms in office as PM.
Comment by Skeptic — Wed 5th September 2012 @ 12:44 am
Reply to Skeptic #9
Correct Skeptic….So Allen, are you still glad to be so called liberated by Feminism….????
Kind regards… John Dutchie… Free at long last from the cesspit of feminist N.Z
Comment by johndutchie — Wed 5th September 2012 @ 7:37 am
I reckon it would have to be this little old lady.
Comment by JohnPotter — Wed 5th September 2012 @ 10:43 am