Family violence/abuse is not the answer

We are told that violence is not the answer, yet our country goes to war when we have problems… It is the way people and families are, the answer to everything. I have chosen to explore the theme family violence/abuse is not the answer. This theme is shown in the short story “boy” by Bruce Stewart, “In the rubbish bin” by Apirana Taylor, a true story by Michelle Manning “its ok” and Harry potter by J. K Rowling At the beginning of Boy, boy who is Maori he feels like he doesn’t belong in his culture “im not a Maori” he gets bullied at school and comes home crying.

His Dad comes home and sees Boy crying he says to Boy “Stop being a baby or I’ll give you something to cry about “This shows that the Boys dad is full of violence and threats. “Stormed into the bedroom AGAIN and started hitting me with his razor strap”. By this saying in the story with the word “Again” means this isn’t the first time or the last time Boy will see of that razor strap. At the end of the story boy finds his true place where he belongs from his mother’s death.

He is in the hands of his mother’s family and I think that’s the last time Boy would have seen of that razor strap. The short story “in the rubbish bin “it portrays the theme that violence/ Abuse is not the answer. More the mental side than the physical side. We see this in the character phillipa. Phillipa who gets mentally abused by her mum. Her poor upbringing causes phillipa to take a smelly trip to a rubbish tin. Imagine how many kids in New Zealand are exactly like her we have over 1,600 gaming machines and over 100 gaming tables and that’s at Auckland sky tower alone.

There are cases were we have parents leaving kids in cars on hot days just because the mum or dad want to go have a try on the machines and the tables it needs to stop . Why don’t the parents stop and think before they do, they should be thinking of their kid’s future and saving up on item’s that they will have wanted when they don’t have the money. Maybe the government needs a wakeup call and instead of having the casino open 24 hours a day, seven days a week make it less so we don’t have more cases of them on the news of kids in hot cars and forgotten about.

In the rubbish bin and boy have similar backgrounds just with a twist, Boys mother takes one hundred percent care of her child and Ruth shows no appreciation towards Phillipa. The dads in the story are both abusive Boys dad towards boy and Phillipas dad towards Ruth. The short story “its ok” also identifies the theme “family violence is not the answer”matt has shown that he thinks that violence is the answer “sharp hard slaps” , He was hitting her face” ,He was hurting her to much now “ shows that Matt is very abusive and he won’t stop anytime soon. Matt has his wife begging him to stop “she was begging now “stop it! Stop it! ”