Our youngest and most vulnerable are being neglected - and the entire country should be alarmed at how our early childhood education system is set up.
That's according to our leading education neuroscientist, who says a full overhaul needs to happen because the number of children going hungry is growing.
More than 160,000 mokopuna - around one-in-five children - live in homes that simply don't have enough food.
Child Poverty Action Group say Aotearoa is now the land of the long, wide, bare cupboard.
Treasury agrees, predicting COVID-19 will force the number of kids into material hardship to rise sharply.
But those on the frontline say there are solutions - if politicians are brave enough.
Weetbix - the classic Kiwi kids breakfast. But for half of the mokopuna at Te Tuareka O Manurewa Punanga pre-school it will be their main - sometimes even their only - meal of the day.
"When they come into school they are not showered, they are not dressed, they're putting on what they slept in," says Te Tuareka O Manurewa Punanga Reo's Dorothy Ram.
"They're coming into the centre, when they are fed breakfast, they'll eat about four bowls of Weetbix, they'll eat their lunch.
"You understand that the children that are coming from these backgrounds because they're not picky so whatever you put in front of them they'll eat it and ask for more."
The food they provide comes straight out of their equity fund - government money that's meant to be spent on educating, not feeding, children.
Sometimes they're even forced to go a step further.
"Our teachers would give the lunch that they've packed to the child - not something I'm proud of, but I am proud that our staff took the initiative to do that for the children," Ram says.
It's this selflessness that defines early childhood teachers - the desire to do whatever's best for the children.
"It is really difficult. As a parent myself it's hard to know that there are children out there that are living in those conditions," Ram says.
Neuroscience educator Nathan Wallis says we've got education completely backward and all our resources should go into investing in pre-school.
"Early childhood is not just babysitting. I would argue it's more important than being a primary school teacher or secondary school teacher because of the way your brain develops - the earlier it is, the more important it is," he says.
"If children are going hungry in early childhood that is really concerning because we as the taxpayer are going to be having the ramifications of that and we're going to be paying for that for the rest of their lifespan.
"It's going to cost a whole lot more in expenses if you're going to make up for the fact we neglected them in early childhood so it's really alarming that kids are going hungry."
It's exactly the reason why charity KidsCan expanded to provide for early childhood centres.
"Based on requests from those centres, children under five were coming to those centres cold, wet, without appropriate clothing, coming without food and of course not having sustained attendance," says founder of charity KidsCan, Julie Chapman.
That was the reality at Early Discoveries in Manurewa. But since the KidsCan programme was introduced bowls of curry and brown rice can't be refilled fast enough.
"A huge impact on children and their behaviour - their behaviour changed in terms of not so high on sugar and things like that and we don't see them so lethargic," says Early Discoveries general manager Anna Scanlan.
KidsCan runs in 61 centres around the country but the waitlist is now up to 119 - that's 4370 children that aren't getting the same opportunity.
But the charity's founder says there is a solution.
"I would personally like to see benefit levels raised and I know a lot of people will be cringing right now as I say but when you actually raise benefits you see people have the time, the space and the opportunity to think about their futures," Chapman says.
There's widespread agreement - from the teachers on the front line.
"The families we have, they are definitely trying to do the best they can on what money they have," Scanlan says.
To our education experts.
"It's addressing a small part of a bigger need, the low incomes and the high cost of living the cost of housing compared to incomes," says Waikato University school of education's Professor Sally Peters.
They say it's the only way to turn Aotearoa - the land of the long, wide, bare cupboard - into the land of opportunity our youngest should have as a birthright.
It would also be an investment that would save money in the long run.
"If you want to invest in a society then it's about investing in early childhood," Wallis says.
"If you want to lower the suicide rate for teenagers and lower the rates of anxiety and depression for teenagers then it's not about what you do in adolescence, it's what you do in these early years."
The challenge has been laid - now it's up to our leaders to deliver for our most vulnerable.
