‘Have you tried…?’ It’s the call of unsolicited advice-givers everywhere. Dr Jess Berentson-Shaw tackles the science (or the lack thereof) behind the latest fad treatments for babies – including those damn amber beads.

The Krakatoa eruption had nothing on this. I watched in horror as a voluminous fountain of precious breast milk blasted high into the air straight above our heads like a pyroclastic blast and then crashed back down over us in a tsunami of liquid gold. I looked down and a huge grin was visible on the chubby face that was otherwise masked in regurgitated milk.

This was my first daughter. A spewer of the most extraordinary talent. She would feed and feed and feed, then cry and cry and cry and cry and cry and cry, then vomit.

I remember my brother-in-law, watching amazed at one of these spectacles, rushing off to the kitchen where I caught the end of what he said to my sister: “….and it was like, like, like a lahar of vomit!”

It was overwhelming and she cried a lot. The midwife and GP did not have a lot to offer in the way of concrete advice except to say it was probably colic or maybe an immature valve in her tummy (this is code for your baby screams heaps and sometimes vomits and isn’t that a bit shit?). We spent a fortune at the pharmacy and health shops on various potions. Nothing really worked and she seemed to grow out of it.

Every parent has one or more of these stories – some childhood ailment that causes a lot of crying (that drives you to the point of insanity and maybe drink) and has no clear fix. So you spend a ton of money on a myriad of treatments, most of which don’t work. There is so much exploitation of the desperation of parents.

Often it would simply be better for everyone if the honest approach were taken for persistent but relatively minor concerns like teething pain. This, would go something like: “Yes this really sucks for you and them, and feels like it will never end, but babies do weird shit and (sometimes literally) have weird shit. Just be confident that you are doing everything you can and it will pass. There is, so far, no good science for anything else. I am sorry. Can I perhaps fold that huge pile of washing for you that looks like it may smother the baby if it falls?”

The ideal would be an empathetic pep talk telling you not to waste your cash. After all, you need it for when they are still at home at 27 because you are “such an awesome parent’ and they cannot bear to leave you.

Having said all that, science really needs to up its game on some of this stuff that affects parents, especially the most common and distressing aspects (like nausea in pregnancy).

So let’s talk about the quackery and where it lurks, and also what might actually work for some of those minor (but nonetheless insanity-inducing) ailments.

Amber beads for teething

So OK, I have to admit I had no idea what on earth it is that amber beads were supposed to do for a teething child, but since I know a bit about this researching lark, I went ahead and did a bit. Turns out they are supposed to relieve teething pain. Not by chewing on them, but apparently by releasing analgesic oil into the skin when worn as a necklace. The active agent is something called succinic acid and this is only found in true Baltic amber. However, a study of Baltic amber teething necklaces in Australia found that while there were trace amounts of the acid, the only way it was released was when the beads were smashed, and even then it did not have sufficient anti-inflammatory properties to make a difference to teething pain.

There is not a single published randomised control trial to test the claim that amber beads work (always a red flag for bullshit, as usually there will be at least one study on any intervention making such claims). Even if Baltic amber beads worked (and let’s be clear, they don’t) many of the beads commonly sold are not even Baltic amber. The worst part about amber beads is they pose a risk of either strangulation or choking on the beads if the necklace breaks. While this risk may be small, the impact is pretty severe. So really, amber beads: total bullshit.

Evidence it works: 0/10
Risks: Death (rare, but you know …)
Cost: around $32

Here is some reliable, evidence-based information on what might help with teething pain.

Oestopathy or chiropractic techniques for colic specifically

Argh the crying! It is so distressing! Anything, anything to stop it! Gentle manipulative techniques used by osteopaths and chiropractors have been tried by many parents to help with colic. This is one of those areas where current low quality studies suggest it is not really effective, but we need higher quality studies to be clear. In some studies it did reduce crying but that was only if the parents knew the child had had the treatment. Whereas if a parent did not know (we call it being blind to the treatment) there was no reduction in crying. While no risks were found, many studies did not actual measure the risks. Hmmm… not an overwhelming body of evidence to suggest it should be tried.

Evidence it works: 2/10
Risks: Unclear (but not likely to be severe or we would have heard). Note that this is only for gentle manipulation; run like the wind if someone wants to crack anything on your baby.
Cost: around $80-$125 per session

Herbs for colic (chamomile, fennel, lemon balm)

The idea here is that the baby screams because they are in pain due to tummy cramps (as opposed to just trying to break your spirit), and these herbs will relieve the pains/gas/etc. Some herbs are given directly to the baby (herb oils or water-based solution) and some are teas that breastfeeding women drink. There is a little bit of evidence that these may work to reduce the amount of crying, but the evidence is a little dodgy (what we call low quality trials with a risk of bias). It should be noted that herbs are not like homeopathy (which is basically water). They can have powerful biological effects, so adverse effects need to be considered. In the studies of these herbs only minor side effects like vomiting, sleepiness and constipation were reported. So overall it may be something that is worth trying.

Evidence it works: 3/10
Risks: Some side effects but not severe
Cost: Gripe tea $18

Laxatives for constipated babies

You know, I sometimes think if babies and kids are not pooing all over you and your home (“How the fuck did it get there?” you ask yourself, while staring in horror at some random part of the house), they are not pooing at all. Either way their poo stresses you out. It is a gift they bring at birth.

When they stop going for 5, 10 – I heard 20 days once – the terror sets in. If you have a child in nappies you stop leaving the house at all: the fear is too great, and you hunker down waiting and hoping for the inevitable. While you do, you start to spoon in the various quack remedies that appear to be ‘natural’. They are all laxatives though.

Laxatives come in two types: osmotic and stimulant. Osmotic include lactulose, milk of magnesia and polyethylene glycol or PEG (it is sold as Movicol here in NZ) – these work by drawing water into the poo. Stimulants make the intestinal muscles contract, and include caster oil, aloe, senna, fibre and other such things.

A systematic review of all the good quality published studies concluded that Movicol (PEG) at a higher dose (0.7 g/kg) may work best and the side effects were minor compared to other treatments like castor oil and aloe. As a side note I have to say reading studies that use “rate of defecation” as a measure is not my favorite part of being a researcher.

Evidence it works: 6/10
Risks: Some side effects but none are severe
Cost: Can get it on prescription so $5, or free for children under six.

Ginger, mint oil, vitamin B6, acupressure, acupuncture and lizards’ tongues for pregnancy nausea

Actually that bit about the lizards’ tongues I made up, but frankly the health community has let down women badly in the area of researching treatments for nausea in pregnancy. So badly that we are willing to try anything some old hag in black hat sells us. For those lucky women who don’t experience nausea, well, I can’t think of anything polite to say so… moving on. For those who experience the hell of hyperemesis gravidarum and for those in between, there is still very little evidence regarding what works, despite the acknowledgement that is a serious and debilitating condition.

Just looking at the ‘natural’ treatments and whether they work, the first thing I notice is a pretty poor quality of trials – just people not doing good science and yet still claiming a remedy works. Frankly women deserve better than that. However, some treatments do show some reductions in scores on the delightfully named ‘Rhodes Index of Nausea, Vomiting and Retching’. Overall, according to a systematic review of all the evidence (the best science you can get), ginger and P6 acupressure (think of the seasickness bands) “may be helpful to women, with some evidence of benefit but the evidence overall was not consistent”. Everything else is unclear still and the lizards’ tongues I would not suggest.

Note that although ginger may be effective it is actually still a powerful pharmacological agent (for example it can act as a blood thinner), so if you are going to try it talk to your GP or midwife about taking it safely. Feel free to direct them to this study on its risks and benefits. Also pharmacological intervention is an option. The evidence for this is not extensive, so again talk to your GP about risks and benefits.

Evidence it works: 4/10
Risks: Some risks for ginger, none for acupressure
Cost: Ginger syrup $18, seasickness bands $30 or self-administered acupressure on the wrist (just search for P6 acupressure point): FREE.

A plea to funders, scientists, researchers and health practitioners here: we need more quality research on this! Nausea, vomiting and retching in pregnancy is common and hideous; it can impact seriously on women and their family’s mental wellbeing, as well as on productivity. People get pregnant; we need them to in fact – it is pretty hard to support ageing populations without new members of society. What we need is science to better assist in overcoming the shitty aspects of it.

Cabbage leaves for breastfeeding

Sometimes when a baby is having problems breastfeeding (or for other reasons) women get breasts that overfill – and if you did not already feel slightly like a dairy cow, this will pretty much do it for you. The result: swollen painful breasts. While this might raise a snigger, it is actually pretty distressing and can lead to women ending breastfeeding because of the knock-on effects like infection. There is very little out there to help women with the engorgement issue hence many remedies are ones that have been used for years, including that old midwife standard, cabbage leaves. Also used are acupuncture, acupressure, cold packs, massage, ultrasound and medication.

The bad news is, basically none of this stuff has been studied enough for there to be really good evidence regarding what works. On the other hand, cabbage leaves (they don’t need to be cold) and hot/cold packs, for some women in some small studies, do relieve distress and pain, and are cheap. So as an individual they are worth giving a go. Just keep your expectations low.

Evidence it works: 4/10
Risks: None
Cost: Not going to bother calculating the cost of a cabbage leaf or two due to seasonal and demand fluctuations.

Lanolin, peppermint oil, drugs, nipple shields versus nothing or breast milk for cracked nipples while breastfeeding

Researching this I have to say peppermint oil sounds pretty uncomfortable on cracked nipples – I am kind of grimacing as I write. The good news is that it is bullshit so don’t bother.

A systematic review into what works for cracked nipples concluded the following:

“Currently, there is not enough evidence to recommend any specific type of treatment for painful nipples among breastfeeding women. These results suggest that applying nothing or expressed breast milk may be equally or more beneficial in the short-term experience of nipple pain than the application of an ointment such as lanolin.”

Great! The free treatment is likely to be just as good as ones that cost. Also the authors point out that most women find the pain reduced to ‘mild’ by 7-10 days after birth. Still I think let’s all agree it sucks and it the source of a lot of new parent distress. Frankly, way more structural support for breastfeeding is needed generally if we want to provide the optimal environment for exclusive breastfeeding. Stop making it a woman’s responsibility to overcome the many obstacles in the way of breastfeeding (and hence making it her fault when she can’t) and put in place appropriate environments and support systems (like freely available lactation consultants to visit at home and unconditional paid leave for parents) that makes it more likely she can.

Evidence it works: 5/10 (breastmilk)
Risks: 0
Cost: FREE!

Next time I am going to take a dive into what works for infant sleep – because far and away the most quackery exists in that area. But equally, there are some effective behavioural techniques that can help, and that you do not need to spend thousands on.

Experts agree: improving the welfare of our children – especially the most vulnerable – would bring huge social benefits, not least among them a drastic decrease in crime. So what are the fixes? And what’s stopping us? Thalia Kehoe Rowden has some suggestions.

What can you say about Thalia Kehoe Rowden? She is a lightening bolt of a woman. She is generous and kind and she lives her values. She wrote this ambitious and passionate piece from Thailand where she is currently doing development work with her family. Her heart is with us here in her home and I love her fierce courage is standing up and saying: We have to do better. Here she asks us what better looks like. What could we do? What do we have to do? Thank you Thalia. – Emily Writes, The Spinoff Parents editor

Here’s a moment from what was simultaneously the most depressing and insightful interview I heard last month.

Lynn Freeman is talking to family lawyer Anne Stevens on RNZ’s Nine to Noon about the government’s proposed domestic violence law changes:

LF: “What do you sense are the major changes, and have they been enough?”

AS: “Well, I can’t really find any major changes.”

Hold on. A nearly two-year review process, including public submissions, has resulted in Cabinet approving a bunch of proposals that… don’t make much difference? How the hell did that happen?

A brief reminder of the scale of the problem in the land of the long white cloud:

• Fourteen per cent of children report being deliberately hurt by an adult in the last year.
• One in three women will be physically or sexually assaulted by a partner in their lifetime.

In terms of cold hard cash, family violence costs us between $4 billion and $7 billion a year. (For these and more horrifying facts and figures, head to the It’s Not OK stats page.)

So when Anne Stevens says, “I can’t really find any major changes,” something is terribly wrong.

Stevens represented Katharine Webb, whose ex-partner Edward Livingstone killed their two children and himself, despite a protection order being in place. Here’s the most important part of the interview:

AS: “I can understand why these things are done. It looks like there’s been a response. But the issue starts at childhood, and these changes don’t go to the factors that lead to the violence that’s so endemic in New Zealand.”

LF: “So could that $130million over four years be spent differently and be more effective?

AS: “Oh, I’m certain it could be. If you look at the Dunedin Longitudinal Study’s findings, they have found that one of the principal factors in the path that a person’s life takes is self-control. Is that learnt at the mother’s knee? Of course it is.

“We know the families where the violence is occurring, the bulk of them. If you go in then, at that point, when the child is learning how to react to frustrating situations, put your money in there, then hopefully the court is going to have a lot less of the people appearing 20, 30 years later on charges of violence.”

The three year election cycle’s a bitch, right?

When power-brokers focus more on getting elected than on actually leading once they have been elected, this is what you get: a shiny, sparkly ambulance, neatly parked at the bottom of the seven-billion-dollar-a-year cliff, and not even a bit of number 8 wire at the top to stop the steady flow of our citizens walking off the edge.

This is negligence on an astonishing scale.

Family violence is a scourge we are not addressing. So is child poverty. So is substandard housing that makes our citizens sick at an alarming rate. We have appalling rates of youth suicide, mental illness, obesity and family breakup.

It is time. We need to have courage. We need to listen to what high-quality research has been telling us for years, and we need to tackle the root causes of these problems.

It’s time to THINK BIG (but not about dams and smelters this time)

But if you and I ran the world, my friends, oh the things we could achieve!

Here’s a thought experiment to help us ditch the short-term mindset:

If I made you Minister for Children, with an unlimited budget, strong influence in Cabinet, and a goal to, let’s say, halve crime over the next 20 years, by building a population of resilient, thriving children, what would you do?

What would your policies be? How would you spend government money to make society dramatically better for everyone?

Of course, I’m using ‘halving crime’ as a proxy for ‘everyone is healthy and resilient,’ because we know that the prison population is largely composed of people whom we have failed.

People are locked up, in many cases, because they grew up in poverty, with all the family stress that brings.

So here’s the thing: if we strengthen families, we can cut crime. Honest. If we strengthen families – like, a lot – we all win, in every possible way.

Five big ideas (and a few dozen more)

I asked Twitter and Facebook for ideas. I’ve woven those responses in with pieces of expert advice given to the government (and mostly ignored) over the last few years.

So here are five THINK BIG projects for the next decade that could get 2016 in the history books for some good reasons for once:

• Wrap support services around parents (instead of bars around offenders)
• Strengthen stressed families (instead of splitting them up)
• Respect and restore mana of tangata whenua (instead of perpetuating cycles of shame and deprivation)
• Eliminate childhood deprivation (it’s better than depriving offenders of freedom later)
• Welcome children in public life (I don’t have a nifty parenthesis for this one, but it’s important, okay?)

THINK BIG IDEA #1: Wrap support services around parents (instead of bars around offenders)

There’s scientific consensus that the first three years of a child’s life set the direction for adulthood. We also know that Zealand public investment in children is both low and relatively ineffective by international standards. Almost every problem that leads an adult to prison can be fixed in early childhood, if we actually want to improve children’s lives.

Here’s what we need: wraparound support for every parent who needs it, beginning in pregnancy.

When someone is two months pregnant, ask: ‘What will this baby need to thrive? How can we make that happen?’ And then make it happen. All of it.

Poverty alleviation, family violence intervention, smoking cessation, drug and alcohol interventions, healthy housing, arrangements for young parents to continue their education, treatment for health problems, budgeting advice and addressing problem debt, nutrition advice and cooking skills, parenting courses, counselling for anger or depression, even daily mentoring to coach someone through all this stuff: if all of these were available to every family unit, right from the beginning, how much misery would we save down the road? How much of the justice and health budgets could we slash by putting our money in early?

If we want to make young children’s lives healthy and secure, we also need

• Better birthing: including counselling after traumatic births; more funding for all Lead Maternity Carers so women have real choices about where and how to give birth; birthing units where partners and whānau are welcome instead of banned from the premises
• Breastfeeding services so that every woman who wants to breastfeed has all the practical and social support she needs to feed her baby. We are currently failing at this.
• Paid parental leave for the first three years of a child’s life. There is simply no one better to look after a child than a parent who is willing and able to do it. If a parent wants to be at home with children, we should celebrate that fact, and fund it.

  I was surprised at how many contributors suggested three whole years. Since that is indeed the developmental window the research tells us is most important, why not shake up our economy to value the time a parent pours into a child in that crucial period?

  How about a model where most businesses don’t need to hold specific jobs open longer than the current 12 months, and leave is paid for centrally by the government, as an investment in its citizens.

  I note that parliament is probably going to make room for organ donors to receive 100% of their income to recover. How about if people donating an entire human being to society get a commensurate regime?

• Home help when babies are born. This brings me to one of my favourite ideas: all new parents should have a significant amount of paid home help for the early years of a child’s life.

  Perhaps something like this: for the first 12 weeks, a trained doula will come to your house for three hours a day to do housework, cook family meals, cuddle the baby while sleep-deprived parents shower or sleep and tell the parents what a brilliant job they’re doing. The doula can also refer families to support services like perinatal mental health teams, lactation consultants and so on.

  After the first few months, you and your Well Child provider, GP, or other support professional will decide together how much home help will be best for your family. It can be a combination of housework and help with the baby or older children. Imagine if every mother of three could have a fun babysitter swing by three times a week and make a fuss of the older kids while she feeds the baby and has a nap after another broken night? This is building a better world, people.

  And before anyone sniffs that parents have coped fine for generations without all of this pandering, let me just remind you of our appalling stats. We are not coping fine. As a nation, we are drowning. Life preservers like this are desperately warranted.

  One daydreaming step further: sick leave for parents. As in, when you are at home with little kids and come down with whatever bug they picked up at kindy, you can call in a government-paid nanny to take over while you curl up in bed with a cold flannel on your forehead.

• Coaching so parents can do a great job: Every family needs access to free parenting classes, beginning during pregnancy. Let’s also provide friendly, empowering, parenting coaches, available to chat to on the phone or for home visits.

THINK BIG IDEA #2: Eliminate poverty (duh)

Every piece of research on what makes for resilient, healthy children – and adults – says the same thing: poverty is the enemy.

And we could just get rid of it, you know. Whether we institute a Universal Basic Income, or follow the 78 recommendations of the Children’s Commissioner’s Expert Advisory Group, there really is plenty we can do to lift families out of deprivation. So let’s do it. Now, please.

Do it for a generation and watch the prison population plummet.

These reports and resources need special mention here. Go and read them to see how true it is that we already know what to do – we’re just refusing to do it.

Even with a secure income, New Zealand’s appalling housing rental stock means kids would still get sick. At the moment, 40,000 children go into hospital each year with ‘housing avoidable’ respiratory illness.

The rental WOF scheme is a thoroughly rational idea that has worked well in trials, has near unanimous support from experts, and simply must be enacted. Refusing to do so sentences thousands of families to unsafe housing. Conscientious landlords have nothing to fear. The rest don’t deserve protection from their responsibilities.

Remember when a Work and Income office was found to be directing struggling families to garages? They protested that they couldn’t be expected to know the quality of the rental accommodation in their neighbourhood. A WOF system would solve that problem.

THINK BIG IDEA #3: Respect and restore the mana of tangata whenua

On top of other measures to get rid of child poverty and get every family off to a great start, there’s plenty more we can to do to make sure every Māori kid can grow up proud, confident, and resilient.

I’m Pākehā, so I’ll refrain from suggesting my own solutions under this heading. Instead I’ll tell you what other people have said would make a difference.

• Boost funding for kohanga reo
• Oversight for kohanga reo and kura kaupapa by a Māori commission
• Teach te reo Māori to all students, in all schools
• Special ring-fenced funding to ensure all schools can offer kapa haka
• More bilingual and immersion units in mainstream schools
• Keep moving on Treaty settlements

THINK BIG IDEA #4: We need to stop splitting up families

You don’t fix a broken leg with amputation. A plaster cast holds the broken pieces together to give them a chance to knit.

In many broken families, children would be better off cocooned by cast, with their parents, to give the family a chance to get healthy. Separating families should be a last resort. Instead, let’s invest in intensive support of families under stress.

We routinely separate families to keep kids safe. But that’s a cheapskate, ineffective and often harmful answer. If we spend more money and effort on families, we can keep children safe and keep families together.

Imagine a future where every suburb or district has a house where families whose kids are not safe at home could move, all together, for as long as it takes to learn the skills they need to look after their kids: budgeting, stress management, addiction counselling, cooking, literacy, how to play with a toddler – whatever they’re lacking.

These would be lovely homes, well-staffed around the clock with social workers and foster carers to make sure the children are safe, as well as professionals to help upskill and treat the parents. All while the family is still together, still near their schools and neighbours, and can establish new, healthy routines, like bedtime stories and good breakfasts.

These homes, a bit like women’s refuges, would be run in different ways according to community needs. Iwi and hapu would have the option to set their own up, run according to local tikanga.

Build parent-child treatment units in every town

Similarly, if a parent of a young child is addicted to alcohol or other drugs, mentally ill or has other serious health problems, they must have the option of being treated without separating them from dependent children, if that’s what’s best for everyone.

Perinatal mental illness affects more than 10 per cent of mothers. There’s only one, small, mother-baby unit in New Zealand where these mums can be treated as inpatients with their babies still with them. Bonding and attachment are so crucial to healthy development that there should be one in every town.

Make prisons and sentencing family-friendly

Frankly, I think it’s pretty clear that prisons are counter-productive in every way. We’d do much better to incarcerate people only for treatment or preventive detention. That’d be a great way to find the money for all these other solutions.

But in the meantime, why, oh why would we punish children for their parents’ crimes? Why take their parents away, making kids even more at risk of every negative outcome you can imagine? Please imagine the effect on your own child or small friend if their parent were ripped away overnight. This is horrific. It is inhumane. It should be illegal to do this to a child, with very few exceptions.

The children of prisoners are an extremely vulnerable group, whose internationally recognised rights are systematically abused and ignored and whose futures are put at risk by the break-up of their families.

Invest in families when relationships break down

We all benefit when children grow up in secure family environments. It’s in all our interests to make it as easy as possible to access relationship-strengthening counselling and courses, and to support families going through transition to do so as healthily as possible.

• Free relationship counselling for all parents
• Family court parenting coaches whose only role is to help families make a healthy transition when a relationship is over.
• Wraparound support services for all families in crisis: is a relationship in strife because of problem debt, chronic depression or addiction? Let’s pour our money into solving those problems, with the pay-off of thriving children in healthy families.

THINK BIG #5: Welcome kids in public spaces and public life

Not a single piece of this article is rocket science or brain surgery (though there is plenty of brain science).

Report after report, expert submission after think-tank inquiry after policy document has told us what will make a difference for children’s lives. So why don’t things change?

For one thing, children don’t vote.

We need to dramatically change the value we place on the interests of children.

I suggest we give the Children’s Commissioner more constitutional clout to advocate for children’s rights and interests. The Attorney-General is required under the Bill of Rights Act 1990 to make an official report to Parliament whenever a proposed law would infringe someone’s rights.

Let’s ask the Children’s Commissioner to do the same for all legislation. Make the government explain out loud how it justifies harming children with any move that’s not in the interests of families.

And what about children’s voting rights reform? A classic Big Piece of Cheese episode of The West Wing gave compelling arguments for children to have the vote. Some contributors to this article suggested lowering the voting age considerably, plus giving parents a proxy vote for any children in their care below that age. Perhaps this would give more incentive for policy-makers to push out their horizon and make plans that consider the long-term effect on society.

Children also need to be more welcome in public places. Boost libraries, fence playgrounds, and make sure every suburb has a welcoming place for all children to hang out and all parents to be resourced with whatever they need. And a public campaign on how brilliant it is to have kids in cafés wouldn’t go astray either.

Kids are actually human beings, you know?

Assorted extra ideas

• No more school fundraisers for necessities, please! Just fund schools well!
• Every school must have warm, dry classrooms.
• Nurses and counsellors in all schools.
• Schools are great for some and not the best educational pathway for others. We need to make high-quality home-based education possible for every child who would be better off at home rather than in a school. Let’s start with an educator’s allowance for parents, so they can afford the time to focus on their children’s education. And wouldn’t it be great to have home-ed coaches available to support families with their kids’ learning?
• Give employers free consultations on how to make their business more family-friendly – and why it will help them too. Maybe they’ve never considered the needs of pumping employees, how their opening hours affect employees with children, or the feasibility of job-sharing. Present them with the business case for family-friendly workplaces.
• Scholarships for Early Childhood Education students, aiming at a more diverse teacher population.
• Increased funding so that every single ECE centre is an excellent one, with low child-teacher ratios, nutritious food, and highly-trained staff.
• A capital works subsidy to make sure ECE centres are in the locations most convenient to families. At the moment there are often not enough in poorer suburbs, or near parents’ workplaces.
• Dramatically increase funding of Playcentres and other parent-run, community-based early childhood gathering points.
• Free healthcare for everyone who needs it. It’s hard to be a good parent – it’s hard to be a good human – if you’re often ill. Let’s help parents put their own oxygen mask on first (literally if necessary) by making primary healthcare free for many more people.
• Free dental care for everyone who needs it. Have you ever tried being a patient parent with terrible toothache and no savings?
• Boost mental health services. Every person should be able to access counselling and psychiatric care as soon as the need is identified, at no cost for anyone for whom it would be a barrier. This would pay for itself approximately four zillion times over. In the first year.
• Free or subsidised sunscreen
• Free or subsidised sanitary items
• Free or subsidised auto-injector adrenaline pens for severe allergic reactions, currently unfunded and prohibitively expensive.

Tell her she’s dreamin’

If I could wave a magic wand and do all this stuff tomorrow with my imaginary unlimited budget, I would bet you my left kidney that it would work. We would dramatically reduce crime and misery in God’s own country. We’d actually have a shot at breaking cycles of poverty and violence that we otherwise seem to be stuck with.

Lacking a magic wand, let’s talk money.

First things first, remember that we’re talking about investment. The earlier you intervene, the less it costs to do so. Child poverty costs billions a year. The measures I’m suggesting will save us money in the long term, as costly things like hospital admissions and crime go down. The only problem is that governments so often lack incentives to consider the long term.

Check out the reports and resources at the bottom for a detailed discussion on the fiscal implications, and the ideological debates on cash-versus-services or employment-versus-welfare.

If you wanted to get a whole pile of extra money right now to fund these investments, here’s the cash we might find down the back of the couch:

• $9.4bn lost to fraud and other ‘economic’ crime. That’s a crime crack-down I could get behind.
• $1.6bn in the Corrections budget. Here’s a thought: what if we immediately halved all prison sentences for future offenders? Does anyone seriously think that being in jail for eight years instead of four will improve anything? If you’re devoted to the (largely fictional) deterrent value of prison sentences, then sure, have different numbers for different offences. But halve them all, tomorrow. And we’ll take the savings and use them to make little kids’ lives better, so they don’t end up in court at all.
• The Morgan Foundation’s proposal for tax reform
• A good, old-fashioned rise in tax on those on the highest incomes.

Pie in the sky. The too-hard basket. Tell him he’s dreamin’.

But don’t you think we’ve kind of got two choices? We can tinker around with legislation and benefit rates and pretend we’re doing something, or we can admit that it’s not working.

So maybe we should try something new. Some actual leadership.

Hands up, anyone?

Thalia Kehoe Rowden is a former Baptist minister and current mother and development worker. She writes about parenting, social justice and spirituality at Sacraparental.com.

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