Tolerance is different to being politically correct

Yes, David has posted about this but I just can’t walk away from it.

I’ve re-read the letters that Ms Mackie wrote to the Listener on the bare feet issue.  Her second letter certainly appears to be an apology of sorts, where she says:

“I realise that my initial address of this issue sounded rather and not-quite-ironically schoolmarmish and missionary-ish, and perhaps this tone, half tongue-in-cheek, contributed to the comprehensive misunderstanding of what I said there.”

The rest of her follow-up letter has quite a different tone to her first.  It is absurd to think that her public admonishment of a kiwi custom is enough to have her lose out on a promotion.  Methinks there was a little more going on.  It is good to see that Ms Mackie has a sense of humour about the whole situation.

Sadly, it’s not just visitors to New Zealand that look down their noses at practices that seem to me (and my fairly wide circle of friends) pretty damn ok.

I was recently told off by another parent for a ghastly act that I had never even considered could be detrimental to my child’s well-being.

My three year old and I were on our near daily ride to the shops.  We were wearing helmets.  We were even wearing shoes.  We were riding past the supermarket car park when a woman (with her two children snugly strapped into a trolley) stopped us by walking right in front of us.  She then told me off for… endangering my child’s health by riding in the rain.

For the record, it was a particularly warm day with a few sun showers.  Oh, and children freaking love playing in the rain.

Despite my extreme panic at being caught out for this terrible  act I did have enough in me to respond.

“Try having fun with your kids… it might give you some perspective”

And, we then rode on through the rain and had a lovely Mum-daughter moment.

The thing I like about a lot of Kiwis (of all shapes, sizes, ethnicities, etc etc) is that we can just get on with things.  I get intolerant of the intolerant. That doesn’t make me politically correct.  May be Ms Mackie was seen to be overly intolerant of others and it wasn’t just a politically correct move to choose not to promote her. Or, may be she wasn’t the best candidate for the role and there were people who were more appropriately qualified.  Ahhh, the joys of making the news with limited information.  I suspect Ms Mackie’s case is a little like the pillow case (under the so-called anti-smacking legislation)… there appears to be a little more to this story than is presented.