They are ignored in the rush to help everyone else who has a complaint or an injustice or a human right that’s not right. They are told they are dying out, almost extinct and old fashioned. The government is determined not to say anything that encourages them. I’m talking about the mums and dads.

It’s time to acknowledge the mums and dads for the great job they do. They are told regularly that the traditional family is dead. These mums and dads have children and pay their bills. They buy the school raffle tickets, visit and support their parents and pay tax consistently and honestly. They work hard to stay together, but if they fail, they do their best for the children. They save up for holidays, worry about their teenagers and do a good turn for the neighbour or their family occasionally.

They teach their children to stick at it, to be polite and to take opportunities. They teach them to give up some things today for better things tomorrow. They demonstrate to children how to put the care of others ahead of their own comfort and consumption. They take each day as a step to long-term achievements – children grow up, and mortgages get paid off eventually

Some parents do all this on a low income, and some on a benefit. They are constantly making choices to give up what they want themselves so they can provide for their children. Parents on low incomes have to make peace with the reality they can’t do as much for their children as they want.

Children aren’t always the postcard version. Some mums and dads every day face a physical and emotional challenge of caring for children with

disabilities where achievement is just getting through the day. Other mums and dads spend months and years finding their way through a confusing and unsympathetic system trying to get the services their children need, and they stick at it. And some children are just difficult. Mums and dads have to learn patience they didn’t know they had, unconditional love they didn’t realise was possible.

Mums and dads have their own sense of achievement – a child finally sleeping peacefully, a teenager safely home, a month when the overdraft was paid off.

But they can’t do it on their own and they shouldn’t have to. The whole community benefits when the mums and dads do a good job, and the whole community pays when it goes wrong. Mums and dads need support and encouragement. They should get more respect, and their authority with their own children should be reinforced, not undermined. I wish politicians would show the same passionate support for mums and dads as they did in Parliament for the Civil Union law.

So thanks – thanks to the mums and dads, and I hope you get some rest and quiet time at Christmas.