Today is going to be difficult

although I should have been looking forward to it.

Hopefully I am off to spend the day selling raffle tickets for the last two blankets we have made for the Kangaroo Island Wildlife Network. I have written about this before. It's been a long journey. I am still hoping we can raise several hundred dollars more for the replanting of vegetation for the bee population on the island. It is still very important. 

Since we started the project a war has started in Ukraine, there has been a catastrophic earthquake in Turkey and Syria, cyclones have occurred in other places and there has been the Covid pandemic. This is just to name a few things which have gone wrong.  I know there will be people who will question why we want to support the Wildlife Network when so many other organisations also need help. My answer will be, "Helping to save the world's bee population is vital to food production all over the world." And yes, I know there will be people who will not be convinced by this even while they say they are worried about "global warming". 

I also know we will be treading on egg-shells at times because we have made simple paper finger puppets to give away to the children who come through. We probably have not made enough and we will be criticised for providing some pink ones, some that look vaguely like friendly unicorns, dogs that are blue and any number of other oddities. No doubt there will be parents who will object to us doing it at all even when I tell them "there are no guns, nothing that is in any way violent". I will probably be apologising because they are not all made out of recycled paper and there are not enough lizards there to satisfy the "environmentally aware".  I will have to watch my language and use "they" instead of "he" or "she".  Each time I help a child put a puppet on their finger I will need to remember to ask permission to touch them...and none of that can be done without seeking permission from the "responsible adult" with them to first give them a puppet. 

In our attempts to "protect" children we have perhaps gone too far. We can do all this and still subject them to the idea that they are not "boys" or "girls". We also tell them they must respect the right to wear religious clothing but not a religious symbol and that giving extra rights to some based on self-identification is fine but to question any of this is wrong.

Is is just possible that we have some of this wrong? How do we explain or justify what happened in Auckland?