Maturity?

It you take the signing of the country’s founding document as a starting date, then we are 175 years old as a nation! With nowhere near the history of our European colonisers we still struggle a little for identity and there are many who do not align with sheep or rugby, racing and beer as a perceived image. We are even spending a fortune to figure out if we need a new flag or not!

We have matured though! No longer is it X Factor: All-other-parts-of-the-world, we have our very own X Factor: NZ! With a population a few over 4 million, it is difficult to escape what goes on in the reality programme, which is little more than an upmarket version of karaoke.

Most of the snippets I have seen are about the humiliation of the not-so-gifted triers by judges who play up to a television audience that likes to laugh at someone make a fool of him/herself and being humiliated.

The news media, radio talkback and social media went berserk when a couple of the judges of this year’s lot went too far with the humiliation thing. Bowing to public pressure the humiliation became ‘bullying’, and the judges were sacked. Isn’t ‘bullying’ a more appropriate term for ‘humiliation’? Though in the reality television world, maybe they are paid to be humiliated – who knows or cares?

Then there was the other biggie in the news.

This married couple went out to a restaurant to celebrate their wedding anniversary. The wife was heavily pregnant and the waitress, after conferring with her boss, refused to serve the mum-to-be a glass of champagne.

There was the faction that believe it is the woman’s right to put into her body whatever she wants (as long as it’s legal) and there were bullying words levelled at the waitress. This was the topic for two days on radio talkback!

There was the faction, much in the minority that thought while well-meaning, the waitress was there to serve and that’s what she should have done. (Equates to an unthinking waitress.)

Some bar owners thought they had a right to refuse to serve, while others disagreed.

Then there were both sides of the related debate, one saying even a single drink could be harmful to a foetus, and the other saying moderate drinking causes no harm to a foetus. Experts of both sides called and no consensus was reached – you would think there would be something definitive about a thing like that, eh?

The thing is though, how did all this talk effect the young woman had been waiting on the tables? Nobody seems to care about her, or how she felt with all this talk focusing on around her.

Serving the pregnant woman obviously pricked at the waitress’ conscience and by not serving the mum-to-be at least she knew definitively that she did not contribute to the harm of a foetus – I can live with that.

The underlying issue, it seemed to me, was that most of the public do not like restrictions to be put on their right to consume booze – that’s where the bullying and arrogance came from.

Anyway, wedding anniversaries are a celebration, but in the end, just another day – I have had nearly fifty of them, so have a fair idea – but to elevate the occasion to a must-have-a-drink? Most of the bullies said being refused a drink would see them walk out of the restaurant! Their right of course, but a bit petty.

The piece de resistance is that we have matured to two home-grown reality programmes. We now have Bachelor: NZ!  (Retch inducing for anyone over 30!)

The world-wide news is that one of the contestants farted while in some romantic spot with the hunk!

Ah yes, maturing as a nation – or just growing pains?