|
|
|
|||||
|
||||||
|
Many years ago, I spent three
hours sitting on a plane next to a red-haired, green-eyed, freckle-faced,
profoundly kickable boy who informed me shortly after takeoff that he was
famous in New Zealand for appearing in a TV ad for meat. He then sang me the
jingle. I recognised it and continued to
every one of the several thousand times he sang it between Wellington and
Sydney. I was vegetarian for the next decade. It was this boy I thought of when
it was revealed Air New Zealand and Qantas had decided that only female
passengers would be lumbered with the chore of sitting next to unaccompanied
children. Men would be spared from having to share airspace with noxious
whippersnappers like the meat boy. If women have to put up with
children travelling by themselves, surely it's only right that men be
officially allocated their fair share of potentially annoying seatmates:
passengers who attempt to show you their holiday photos or nervous fliers who
spend the entire flight hyperventilating at the thought of being crushed by
falling luggage. It seems surprising that Air New
Zealand and Qantas have no qualms about accusing half their client base of
potential paedophilia. Men, it appears, are such filthy, immoral, perverted
beasts that even those who appear relatively decent on the surface cannot be
trusted to withstand the temptation of being seated next to young flesh. Almost as surprising is the news that
paedophiles, who we're always being told are exceptionally cunning and
devious, would feel comfortable abusing children in an environment teeming
with onlookers. In economy class, at least, you can hardly help yourself to a
beer nut without elbowing a couple of other passengers in the face. It's interesting that the two
airlines haven't attempted to justify their extraordinary ruling by citing a
long list of cases in which men were convicted of abusing unaccompanied
children on flights --- indeed, they haven't bothered attempting to justify
it at all. Air New Zealand's part in all this
is particularly baffling. In my experience, which consists of several
wrist-slashingly awful long-haul flights with my children, Air New Zealand
couldn't give a flying Fokker about the welfare of kids. Which leads me to
think that this bizarre edict is a product not of the airline's concern for
the safety of its youngest passengers, but its fear of lawsuits. The two airlines aren't alone in
regarding all men as predators and all children as prey. The biggest threats
to the children of most of us are road accidents, drownings, burns and
poisonings, yet child abusers cast an unnaturally large shadow. Perhaps it's the newspaper photos
that do it: all those well-groomed middle-aged pakeha men leaving the
courtroom in their shirt and tie after being accused of raping their
daughters. Drug dealers look like drug dealers; gang hit men look like gang
hit men; child abusers look like the rest of us. A friend in her late 50s counsels
the adult survivors of child sexual abuse but says that when she was raising
her own kids, she didn't even know there was such a thing as child sexual
abuse. In the space of three decades, we've gone from assuming all adults are
the natural protectors of children to accepting that some of them will betray
that trust in the most unspeakable manner. Most of my male friends are far
better fathers than their own fathers were, yet few would feel comfortable
left alone in a room with a child who was not their own. The obvious person
to point this out would have been Children's Commissioner Cindy Kiro, who
presumably has an interest in encouraging men to have good relationships with
the children in their lives. Instead, she has commended Air New
Zealand and Qantas for putting thought into their policies and for
endeavouring to keep children safe. My son is four. I'd like to ask Dr
Kiro at what age she'll stop regarding him as a potential victim of sexual
abuse, and start regarding him as a potential abuser. Because, apparently,
those are the only two options left for men. Linley Boniface is a
Wellington-based freelance writer.
|
