Alex – Auckland City
“What have I learned from spending time with a child? I learned patience, I learned everyone’s almost born with a clean slate. You can’t really give them grief for not knowing something. No-one’s born a racist, you know? It’s things like that. You’ve just got to fill the cup with good things. Children are the future and we’ve got to do things for them.
No, only child; born in Wellington, child of the capital, grew up in Christchurch from four till 10. I’ve been in Auckland since then. My family retired six years ago back to Christchurch. I lived on my own in Auckland City since then. Don’t really like children, and never really spend much time with infants, but I was teaching a young’un the piano and I really enjoyed it.
Yeah to be honest, I find 97 percent of men disappointing these days. I think the role of a man is still there. He either needs to get a job, or his job is to provide. I don’t think a lot of men have a high opinion of them these days. I reckon a man needs to be there. He needs to be patient and he needs to be… my mother and father were together until I left the house. They were still together, but they didn’t split up for that reason, because I was there and I needed to be raised and, as I say, I don’t have a high opinion of man.
Well, we need to be strong for everyone else. I’ll leave that question there. I’m not sure if a role of a man’s changed. I just think a lot of men have mess-ups these days. I think the man needs to go out and have pride in hard work. We had pride in going out and putting food on the table for other people.
It was expected that we had a lot of weight on our shoulders, and in these days it’s like, I don’t know, is it less politically correct? Shouldn’t the weight be shared? Women are becoming more independent. They have the right to everything we have. You know, the roles are shared. Back in the day it was like men do this and women can’t because it’s the man’s job, and I just think maybe that’s one reason; if women are expecting to have more weight on their shoulders, it should be split a bit. I just think men these days are more lazy, more like it shouldn’t all be on our shoulders.
I think I’m a bit more old school. I provide for my girlfriend. I think if I’m in a family then maybe it should be the man’s role, but I’m a guy and I just see mess-ups with guys all around. I just think we’re not the shield-carrying sword warriors of old. We’re a bunch of amateurs these days.
We were born with an empty cup and it gets filled by the people around us. They say we are a reflection of the five people we spend our most time with, and I think that for children they’re born with a clean slate, and if they have people around them that are racists or idiots, or people with poor morals, then the cup’s going to be filled with that kind of stuff. That’s when you really look at if the mother and father were a different genre of people or if they had better morals then the child wouldn’t have been raised in such a way.
I just feel like if it was a clean slate, and we as a society raised children to be what society wants them [to be], then there’ll be less mess-ups. I just think the clean slate is something that shouldn’t be tarnished, and it’s tarnished with just basically everyone.
I’ve got a couple of mates who are primary school teachers and they are often quite displeased about the things that are being taught in primary schools. I think I met a few people that are between 12 and 15 who just don’t have the sort of knowledge that you’d expect them to have. I think when people leave high school, they’re so different, and it’s like did we teach them everything that they needed in high school? Are we all together? We’re really not, and there’s so many different types of people, and something like a compulsory two years military after high school or something… That puts everyone in a similar category, and you’re putting everyone through a similar sort of thing.
If things like no compulsory military or no compulsory things [exist], everyone’s going to grow up completely different and how can you bring a million and a half people together if people don’t have to go through the same thing. Two years compulsory military or something like that, you know.
We’re not at war, we’re not at war at the moment, and I think the biggest problem with people these days is their absolute lack of discipline, self-discipline, that needs to be taught. How are you going to bring a million and a half people closer? Like do they want to become closer? You can’t. You have to go through something together and there has to be a reason to come closer, because I don’t want to come closer with anyone. I don’t really like people, and I just thought, you know, that’s my only idea; two years compulsory military. Teach them self-discipline and if people sort of have similar experiences to show with everyone else then they might stop feeling completely different to everyone else.”
