Kids dumped at libraries
‘Frazzled’ librarian says parents are using the facility as a free child-minding service
Libraries are being inundated with unsupervised children during the school holidays. Clendon woman Therese Luxton says her local library is teeming with unsupervised kids who have been dropped off by parents who can’t afford childcare.
She said she had met a “very frazzled” librarian who said they were being used as a free babysitting service. Children had come without food and the librarians had not budgeted for food.
“After returning to the library with bags of feijoas, I was met at the library door by an unattended little chap who was all of 6,” Luxton said. “He asked for a bag with no hesitation at all.”
Luxton believed this was the consequence of expensive child-minding which left a community facility having to double as a social agency.
The Herald called another Auckland City library which said the problem was rampant but the staff member did not want to speak in light of a funding cut and restructuring.
A Kaikohe library employee said they used to have a big problem but they put a stop to it last year. Now they ask for ID and tell the parents their children must be supervised.
“It used to be pretty bad. We’re not a daycare, we’re a library.” Otele Etuale brought his daughters Imeleta, 6, and Malaea, 7, to the Clendon library for a read. He said he would never send his kids there without a supervisor. “I don’t trust anyone with my children.” The Herald spent some time at Te Matariki Clendon Library and observed most children were supervised inside. But outside at the skatepark there were more than 20 children and one adult. Kids as young as 7 said they were there alone. Most seemed to be among friends.
Asked if they used the library unsupervised as well, they said yes.
The solo adult, who wanted to be known only as Ash, said he always accompanied his children, who are aged 12, 11, 6 and 5.
“Sometimes there’s trouble down here. The other kids might steal their bikes.”
Ash had seen kids younger than 5 come without a parent, but said they were often with siblings. He thought some parents used the place as a daycare, and kids used it to get away from troubled homes.
“It’s pretty sad. A lot of kids get up to mischief. Before you know it they’re tagging the park. It sucks.”
Te Matariki Clendon Community Centre and Library manager could not comment as she did not have permission from her supervisor.
Police say a person can be fined up to $2000 for leaving a child aged under 14 unattended under conditions that are unreasonable.
Auckland Libraries spokesman Greg Morgan said they had not had reports of unsupervised children being a particular issue these holidays. He advised caregivers to not leave children under 14 unaccompanied.
Child Poverty Action Group coconvener Janfrie Wakim said abandoning children at libraries was the mark of desperate parents trying to survive. If they couldn’t afford childcare, libraries were a last resort.
“Libraries are full of sympathetic people, kids love them and they become a magnet.”
Wakim believed this was part of a larger issue where government policy was work-focused rather than child-focused.
“There is this whole problem with how we care for children all of the time, not simply during working hours. Women have moved into the workforce but the care of the child has not been thought through in the same way that’s helpful for children.”
An example was the Working for Families in-work tax credit of $72.50 where a solo parent must work 20 hours a week or a couple can work 30 hours a week between them.
Wakim is calling for that tax credit to be extended to all low-income families, whether they meet the minimum work requirement or not.