Letter to the Editor.
Underage Mother
It has come to my attention through your newspaper that some people in Central Hawkes Bay are concerned about Pawa, the large concrete duck sitting in the main street of Waipawa, being an under-aged or immature mother.
I would firstly like to point out that age is relative.
That is to say, that animals of different species age at different rates.
You would not expect your family pet (say a cat or a dog) to live to the same age as you, and neither would you expect them to wait 15 years or so for their body to reach maturity before starting to have their litters of kittens or puppies.
Concrete ducks also age differently to people.
I have discovered by talking to experts in the concrete field that concrete takes about a month to mature and, when this stage is complete, a concrete duck id fully developed in every way (capable even of laying concrete eggs and becoming a mother).
It is perhaps sad that, although physically capable of being a mother , Pawa was not ready emotionally for this monumental stage of her life.
And perhaps that is a lesson that young people can learn from herÖ that you must be sure of your relationship before you progress to the stage of even contemplating motherhood.
But I feel that it is not the fact that Pawa seems so young to lay an egg that we should condemn her, nor should we condemn her for letting her egg drop out from beneath her whiles she was suffering from a fit of post-egg depression (a stage where actions are not always logically thought out and behaviour is erratic).
Instead we should be condemning that dastardly male out there somewhere, who sweeps a young duck off her feet, promises her the world and then leaves her holding the baby (or in this case -the egg!)
It was indeed a sad sight to see the distraught mother when she discovered that it would be impossible to get her dropped egg back beneath her, and it is fortunate that retailers of Waipawa calmed her by promising to take the egg under their wing to care for it for her during the incubation period, (and for them to pay some very expensive counselling to help her through her state of severe post-egg depression.)
Pawa has progressed well through her time of counselling but still needs your support to get her through this difficult time.
She does not need you to shake your head at her and condemn her for being a young single duck who has been tricked into love and then deserted by the one she believed loved her.
Instead she needs your support and understanding.
She realises that there is no way that her duckling can be returned to her stand for her to care for it herself and this fills her which much grief.
But she hopes instead, that there are people compassionate enough in Waipawa or Central Hawkes Bay who will see past her status as a young single yellow concrete duck, to find her son a good home where he will be loved and cared for.
Josiah Madison Gonesmind
Duck Psychologist and Relationship Counsellor.