Somehow we always seem to get our lines crossed.
There are Bad parents out there and the kids that turn out bad are as a result of that. These kids in turn become Bad parents.
That is fact and is life as we know it now.
The true example I used is how 1 "bad" kid was able to become a " good " parent and citizen.
We cannot do anything about the "bad" parents but we can attempt to do something about the kids.
Simple solution to the problem of bad parents is to take the kids away from them and train them. This is easiest done when they are about to become teens because we don't have public institutions that exist to take them earlier, the orphanages would not be able to handle the numbers.
I won't go as far as to say all that, a lot of times I read what you have to say and I find myself in agreement with it. I get what you're saying here and you may be on to something. Whether this is actually feasible as an idea though may be another issue.
This is what I'm alluding to B&S.
This reality, a generation , sorry another generation on the verge of being lost.
Life on the Beetham
One in three households headed by women.
Half of the children are underachieving academically.
Parents in these homes mostly absent or out of control or themselves ‘lost.’
The Beetham? Isn’t that the housing development you pass on the left on the way to the airport before you fly off to “Mee-ami?” The place that Pat Bishop did her best to pretty-up by planting some trees and flowers in front of it?
The one they parked the train in front of so that the Queen could not see it on her entrance to the fabled city of Port-of-Spain, the “sophisticated capital city unrivalled as the business, financial, diplomatic and judicial hub of the Caribbean—with a skyline to match?”
The Beetham, officially named by someone with a weird sense of humour Beetham Gardens, is little known if only because of the stench and dust that it lives with because it’s also adjacent to the Labasse, where we dump our garbage.
It’s the place where they say you have to drive carefully whenever a dump truck arrives because of a set of young men running across the highway to put down a “wuk.” Never stop there they say, they will strip you and your car like piranha. Drive on your rims!
What is it like to grow up there? What sort of life do children have there?
Someone has actually looked at this. Not a local, no, no, we locals aren’t interested in research like that. A foreigner “had was to do it.”
Thanks foreigner.
Some interesting facts: one in three households are headed by women and not necessarily the mother, since in 79 per cent of them, a parent is absent. In most of them there is no home supervision of children. A parent has died in one in five.
One in eight have a parent in jail. In 35 per cent there is active domestic violence or “extreme aggression in the home,” meaning cuff-down and “bodow-bodow.”
Half of the children are underachieving academically and half have a diagnosable mental health disorder. Almost half of the families have someone who is formally employed, 30 per cent are unemployed (2003 figures) and 25 per cent are self-employed.
Incomes average under $3,000 a month. Most people either rent (40 per cent) or own (36 per cent) their homes; 18 per cent are squatting.
So what is life like for a child?
Let the children speak for themselves.
James is aged seven. He lives with his mother, stepfather, seven sibs, three uncles and two cousins. He has this to say:
“All my big cousins has guns and bullet-proofs and tings...there’s lots of shootings and teefin. Mummy say stay in de yard, if I go down the road I could pick up a stray bullet.”
He recently “took” money from another child at school and is said to be having difficulty concentrating in class.
A little girl, Samantha, age six, has been “checking out” during school since the death of her teenage brother two months ago. He was shot and killed not far from their home. He was the one who used to accompany her on her daily walk to school.
Pat is 13 years old. One day she brought her packed bags with her to school. She was planning to run away at the end of the school day.
Strife at home had reached “an all-time high,” with her mother attending to “yet another new man” in her life, her blind grandmother custodian increasingly unable to meet the needs of a difficult adolescent and the recent arrival of two uncles, a cousin and an aunt with a new baby to share the already cramped home.
She is still trying to cope with the death of her father, whom she barely knew, of Aids. Her teacher reports she is unwilling and unmotivated to learn.
Twelve-year old-twins Arthur and Anderson have difficulties learning. Whilst one of the twins was being interviewed, he sucked his thumb. He spends most of his free time cleaning his room, sweeping the yard and organising household objects.
His more articulate and brighter brother describes a chaotic home life where an older sister recently died in childbirth and his stepfather lashes them frequently.
In 2005, our GDP increased by 6.5 per cent, a sign of positive growth for the 12th consecutive year. Despite this, ours is a society threatened by a number of social challenges, not the least of which is the way our children are being brought up.
In the midst of billion-dollar expenditures on developing T&T into a so-called “first world nation,” without any thought being give as to what constitutes a “first world nation,” vulnerable children such as these in the Beetham and other communities are too often finding themselves underdeveloped, disempowered and “lost.”
Parents in these homes were mostly absent or out of control or themselves “lost.” Having an out-of-control parent is one of the most fearful of all experiences that a child can ever experience.
To attempt economic development without taking into account the needs of children to learn, to grow and be molded into a fully functioning, contributing citizen is a travesty of governance. We are already paying for it and we will continue to pay for it.
©2005-2006 Trinidad
