Chris Hipkins

And she said there was one kid.

I tell you, when she told me the story, I was in tears.

She said there was one kid who was just hanging back and he didn't want to get involved.

And then it finished and the woman was about to leave.

And this one kid had stayed behind.

He hadn't participated when the baby was being handed around the class.

And he went up to her.

And he said to her, and he said, can I hold your baby?

Because he didn't want to do it in front of all of his mates.

And he held this baby and he learned about the baby and he was giving it cuddles and everything.

And then he handed the baby back to her and he said, do you think it's possible for someone who's never been loved to love a child?

Wow.

And I've heard her tell this story subsequently as well, and she had everybody in tears with that story because the next picture that she puts up on her slideshow is a photo of this guy as an adult with his wife and his kids, and he's an amazing dad.

Wow.

And you can change.

You can turn this around.

But if you've never experienced that yourself, it's a big journey, and you need to have a lot of loving people supporting you through it.

Yeah.

And I can recite it word for word because it had such a powerful impact on me at the time because I was one of those kids who was always given lots of love at home and I never had to want for that.

But I know that there are kids out there who are not in that position.