It’s time to grow up!

Regression psychology: the adoption by an adult or adolescent of behaviour more appropriate to a child, especially as a defence mechanism to avoid anxiety (Collins dictionary).

I see such behaviour very often at school: a student is brought to my office for me to reprimand or a teacher brings a particularly unexpected occurrence to my attention. I am not sure it is always “a defence mechanism to avoid anxiety”… it is just as likely to be to avoid a punishment, to tug at my heart strings or, more worryingly, for the student to simply get his own way (I teach in a boys’ school, so I tend to use masculine pronouns).

Countless times I urged students to take responsibility for their actions, tell the truth, own up, settle differences by speaking out and not hitting out. It’s always someone else’s fault, or it never happened; a finger is pointed elsewhere. Righteous indignation is also irritating, as is pouting and the inability to empathise or see other people’s point of view… but I deal with primary school kids.

Last week, a nine-year-old was brought to my office for punching a fellow student in the face allegedly over being taunted about his girlfriend.

The student in question happens to be rather short and prone to such reactions, so I stepped closer to him (I am taller enough to have kept adequate social distance vertically), stood arms akimbo and told him that, since he thinks he can punch people in the face, I was going to do the same. That sort of deflated him so I stepped back and picked up the thread of my argument, inviting him to see another way of reacting to a perceived injustice.

But how can I teach your children, dear parents, how can I accompany them along the road to maturity if we read in the papers how ministers do not admit to inappropriate language and that a doctor who said something others didn’t agree with was transferred to save money instead of lives?

Do we adults not realise that this is the message we are giving our children: it’s OK to lie; it’s payback time? Our society is seriously regressing into a state of childishness: isn’t it time we adults grew up?

Mariella Vella – Attard

Hospitals deal

I read that the government “has plans” to take back hospitals from Steward Health Care.

I stand to be corrected but, if I am not mistaken, there is a court case, triggered by Adrian Delia on this subject, which is still ongoing.

Again, if I am not mistaken, all the members of this government repeat ad nauseam that they “leave institutions to do their work”.

Have the law courts been deleted from the list of institutions?

Mario Dingli – Sliema

Women’s rights

I refer to Tonio Borg’s opinion piece of December 31. His claim that Għaqda Studenti tal-Liġi’s (GħSL) well researched and comprehensive position paper on abortion is “sad” is entirely unfounded. Even worse is his statement that GħSL should have asked Life Network’s opinions about abortion.

Borg should be well aware that Life Network is far from being a source of reliable and unbiased information, given their affiliation with Agenda Europe, an anti-human rights, right-wing extremist network. Agenda Europe actively works for the removal of the rights of women and LGBT people as well as for the revocation of existing reproductive rights in general.

No prudent researcher should refer to this entity as a source of reliable information.

Borg also objects to the mention of religion in GħSL’s paper which, in stark contrast to his single-minded focus on Catholicism, refers to the views of several religions. It is healthy to remember that other religions do exist and most are not opposed to women having abortions. In fact, some Christians, such as Protestants, take a nuanced approach to choice.

Given that Malta is the only country in the EU (as well as among most Western countries) to have a blanket ban on abortion, it is no wonder that GħSL focused on laws in countries where there is no such blanket ban. Would Borg have preferred a comparison with El Salvador or Madagascar, where such a blanket ban exists?

Contrary to what readers have been led to believe, according to the United Nations’ Human Rights Committee’s General Comment on the Right to Life (https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/CCPR/CCPR_C_GC_36.pdf) abortion is a human right. It is high time that Malta stops denying women their rights.

Natalie Psaila obo Doctors for Choice Malta – Naxxar

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