You cannot vindicate children's rights by taking away the right to be a child. Recently, one of my children was given a gift of a book called For Every Child, an illustrated children's version of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The book contains visual interpretations of the rights by 15 children's illustrators and the beautiful cover is a detail of Belfast-born P.J. Lynch's contribution.
Reading it for my children these past few days, I was struck by the dichotomy between the simply worded rights in the book and the stories which dominated the week.
No one on earth has the right to hurt us, not even our mums and dads. Protect us always from anyone who would be cruel (Right No 19). Yet newspapers were full of pictures of a brightly smiling little girl who had been killed by her father.
As the week wore on, the hysterical headlines, which were more suited to a stranger shooting a child at random, gave way to a more muted response. Gradually, it seemed to sink in that only some deep desperation could drive a father, acknowledged as loving, to turn a shotgun on his beloved daughter and then himself. It was horrifying, inexplicable and something which will be an endless source of pain to her mother and to both families involved. It was too horrifying to bear thinking about and yet, in a time when adult relationships break up more frequently than before, we are forced to look at it to see what, if anything, can be learned.
How could such a situation, in the future, be prevented from escalating in this way? How can the rights of children to be cared for as much as possible by both parents be protected? These are troubling, difficult questions with no easy answers, yet they must be faced, and not only at a practical level, such as the training of gardai involved in such situations.
Teach us to read and write and teach us well so that we grow up to be the best we can at whatever we wish to do (Right No 24). The most traumatic thing about September for children should be the end of summer. Yet children in Belfast, simply trying to go to school, were subjected to a barrage of the most appalling bigoted abuse and their very lives were put at risk.
Some have wondered how parents could walk their children through such danger. Yet education happens more outside the classroom than inside. What would those parents have been teaching their children if they had allowed themselves to be bullied into submission? No doubt the dark forces on both sides who exploit every such situation were active but, fundamentally, parents were only trying to do a simple, mundane thing - to deliver their children to school. No matter what the fears of the loyalist community, there is no equating the actions of those who screamed abuse at little girls and brought along their own children to do so, with those who faced down such behaviour.
Lest we become complacent in the Republic, another minority was discovering that its very presence was a threat to the larger community. In Co Galway a tiny two-teacher school, the kind idealised in sentimental literature, remained empty as parents withdrew their children because Traveller children were being enrolled. Fear and prejudice once again combined to deprive children of a basic right.
Allow us to tell you what we are thinking or feeling. Whether our voices are big or small; whether we whisper or shout it, or paint, draw, mime or sign it - listen to us and hear what we say (Right No 13). At last, a glimmer of hope when, as promised, Dail na nOg or the children's parliament convened this week. Children need some kind of national forum where they can express the needs of children. It was good to see, for example, that one of the motions for debate was the provision of play and leisure facilities, in a country where allegedly we have five times more golf courses than playgrounds. But it will be a false dawn if it is only a token or if the voices that are heard are not truly representative.
For Every Child is a beautifully produced book and the more staid language of the original convention, included at the back, contains much that is vital for the development of children. It is sad, then, that the interpretation of the convention has become a battleground. There is no dispute that children have a right to basics, such as food, shelter and education. After that there are sharp divisions as to how the rights of children are best vindicated.
Basically, there are two models of children's rights. The first, while fully acknowledging the rights of children, would maintain that children are different to adults, and need to gradually develop to a stage where they can take on adult rights and responsibilities. In the meantime, families supported by the wider community and the state have a huge responsibility to ensure the welfare of children.
The other approach would seek to blur the distinctions between adults and children by favouring increased autonomy for children so that they are making more and more decisions for themselves at younger and younger ages. For example, such lobby groups would push for what they coyly term reproductive services for children, sometimes including access to contraception without parental consent, from the early teens on. That is both controversial and headline grabbling but, perhaps more insidious, is the attempt to reframe family life as a democracy, where children's views are accorded equal weight with adults.
Quite frankly, that way madness lies. I have yet to meet the young child who considered balanced nutrition or adequate sleep a priority. Similarly, teenagers often need fathers and mothers willing to be termed the worst parents in the world, simply because they insist on boundaries.
Children need to be listened to and sometimes what they have to say is disturbing and challenging. But they also have the right to a childhood. It would be ironic indeed if children were deprived of that right by those claiming to vindicate their rights.
bobrien@irish-times.ie