Melting my heart

There was a program by Bill Cosby entitled 'Kids say the darnedest things'. I never watched it, didn't care but now I am a teacher and I deal with kids everyday. Now I'm not saying I am watching re-runs now but I was reminded of it when the kids in my class blurted out random comments or genuine thoughts.

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M: I don't want you to go Mr. Chang, I'm going to miss you.
Me: That's sweet. It's nice to be miss.
M: Yeah, I will miss you, I miss you when I go home, I miss you at night and I miss you on the weekends too.

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J: Mr. Chang, your my dad.
Me: I'm not your dad J, you have a dad.
J: Yeah, but your like my dad. You look after me.

God Defend New Zealand

I heard a very interesting conversation over the weekend. A guy was arguing why we should have Waitangi Day. His arguments were about patriotism, that we as New Zealanders are not patriotic enough and that we need something to associate ourselves with.

Now I was agreeing with him a little but I didn't get the chance to ask him, why New Zealanders aren't patriotic enough, what were his thoughts?

Here are some possible explanations that I have thought of:

1) Maori consider themselves Maori and not New Zealanders.
2) We associate ourselves with the Silver Fern far more than we associate ourselves with the New Zealand flag.
3) We put too much emphasis on Maori in New Zealand. How many of us know the National Anthem flawlessly? Ok, now how about the Maori version?
4) We have two versions of the National Anthem.
5) We have tall poppy syndrome. We rather associate ourselves with our "region" than with New Zealand because it might lump with the Jafa's or the hicks in the Tron.
6) We call ourselves Kiwis and not New Zealanders. Do you hear American's calling themselves Yanks or the English calling themselves Poms (yes, I know this one has a negative connotation)?
7) We haven't been in MANY wars.
8) We leave the country in droves because there are better opportunities elsewhere.

I am sure that there are more.
I know that I have not made arguments for patriotism in New Zealand.
However, I DO think that New Zealanders aren't patriotic enough.