Lyrics Tamariki - Dad , Tipene

Some say we had it hard but, our elders had it way harder
That's why we the students they're the masters
A generation of babies born to fatherless families
Claimed as casualties of war
Te Reo was beaten out of them by the law(yeah that's right)
They were punished for breaking our native tongue
Identity crisis strikes our people right now
They damage they have done they knew the day would come
That we would fight to get it back just check the stats
Less than ten percent of us speak and that's a fact
Speaking of stats Māori top the list for everything bad
In this country from everyday practices went from
Selling weed to fiends for Methamphetamine
We're socially awkward I can tell
A marae's a place they've never been
So while we running around like headless chickens
Trying to find ourselves victims of mental health
Choosing to live in stealth bottled up nobody talks
We all just keep it to ourselves so many problems
While we're busy stressing out man

What about our kids? (Tamariki)
What about our kids? (Tamariki)
See we can't help if we don't know what's wrong
Let's reach out keep the whanau strong
Let's do this for our kids we got to learn to forgive
And move we only got one life to live, let's live it

Lost souls roam homeless in a world corrupted by man
Weak minds take short cuts only the hearty few
Will take a stand I know my rights
And I am gonna put up a fight for the land
With the mic in my hand from the highest peak
To the last grain of sand
Māoridom is not taken serious enough
In this world we live in so we can't adapt to the system
Filling up graveyards and prisons gang violence
The blind lead the blind in a herd of fiends
Leaving the murder scene crimson
Our culture dying still nobody listening, Lord
I can't pretend I have all the answers
But everything changed for me the day I became a father
I learned to be more responsible for my actions
Coz weather it's good or bad it all becomes a chain reaction
And we running around like headless chickens
Trying to find ourselves chasing material wealth
Take it out on our spouse bottled up nobody talks
We all just keep it to ourselves so many problems
While we're busy stressing out man

What about our kids? (Tamariki)
What about our kids? (Tamariki)
See we can't help if we don't know what's wrong
Let's reach out keep the whanau strong
Let's do this for our kids we got to learn to forgive
And move we only got one life to live, let's live it

(Dad speaks)
In other words you're only gonna reep what you sow
And the life I lived was work, work, work
Is... but um I know it's not all to life
My advice to the young parents is to.to love them now
And care for them now because
When you get my stage of life they're gone they're left
I should've did this I should've did that but
If you haven't planted that seed you can't reep it
It's, it's simple as that I remember times when we ahh
It wasn't cool to show your love and affection to your partners
Because Its wasn't cool It wasn't a manly thing ahh it was almost
A non existent in our time as children just something
That you never talked about and there was a lot of tapu things
That we never talked about for various reasons
I don't know why

What about our kids? (Tamariki)
What about our kids? (Tamariki)
See we can't help if we don't know what's wrong
Let's reach out keep the whanau strong
Let's do this for our kids we got to learn to forgive
And move we only got one life to live, let's live it