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“You help others who don’t do as well by lifting the people who do well and making them the example so others will follow. But you don’t lift the children, you don’t motivate, you don’t inspire.
“You want to talk about bad parenting but do not want to commend, acknowledge, or reward good parenting. That is the dilemma this country faces.”
Copyright Office of Parliament 2023
Dr Roodal Moonilal, July 2022
“I say that boldly, they are products of a failed education system, they are products of failed parenting… the miscreants of the East-West Corridor who feel that what you have belongs to them…”
Pundit Satyanand Maharaj, April 2023
“What we are confronted with is an unrealistic expectation that the police can somehow miraculously transform the propensity, the disposition, the behaviours of people with criminal intent. How practical a proposition is that? Policing is not a substitute for parenting.”
Police Commissioner Erla Harewood-Christopher, November 2023
(Copyright TTPS)
(Bad) parenting is now the focus of attention. Dr Moonilal suggests highlighting those who have achieved academically to inspire others. But he glides past the differences that create the achiever.
Is he prepared to address the ills of society contributing to underachievement? Or does he expect the underachiever to magically perform at a higher level without changing their home and neighbourhood condition?
The wealthy, with superior resources and networks, can take the opportunities.
When we look at the Covid-19 experience at the school level, we will recognise that while some students continued to learn seamlessly, others did not. Children from disadvantaged homes did not have the fundamental tools to be part of the e-learning platforms during the pandemic. They lost a minimum of six months of education.
The socio-economic status of his mother is the best predictor of a child’s likelihood to achieve academic success. How do we help the less fortunate?
Are we, as a nation, prepared to have working, well-sourced Early Childhood Centres? Will we fund after-school activities like sports and music lessons?
Hawks draw players primarily from the inner-Port of Spain and Morvant/Laventille communities.
(Copyright Allan V Crane/ CA-Images/ Wired868)
Doing both these things would productively occupy the young child and remove the attraction of the gangs. They will also trigger a social dynamic that would strengthen the household structure. Without an investment in these areas, we will likely continue with the unequal distribution of potential income.
While some single parents succeed in raising successful children, parenting is hard. Single parents have fewer hours to read, talk and play with their children. Children require a lot of money, time and energy.
How do we expect our single parents to provide this level of care that two-parent households do with some difficulty? Many of these unmarried parents are employed in jobs with considerable instability.
These jobs rob them of their humanity. They are dispensable and vulnerable. Other parts of life go out of whack when things are good at work. The worker is expected to put the job’s demands before their children’s needs. They remain subject to the whims of their employer and customers.
Fewer job options are available, and good jobs increasingly require higher education. Mothers with low educational achievements are cornered. And so are their children.
Daily, they are scrambling to put food on their tables. Job instability leads to home instability. These families have to move more often than do others.
(Copyright Jerry Holbert)
Inflation is an armed bandit that robs them daily. Their lives are miserable. Their children witness this drama. They cannot take the opportunities offered.
The Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha general secretary, Vijay Maharaj, confirmed that it was known for years that thousands of children were falling through the educational system but that resources were allowed to shrink instead of expand.
He specifically cited the decline in the vocational resources and opportunities in the secondary and post-secondary systems, which usually offered career options outside of traditional academics. What did we expect would happen? The chickens have come home to roost.
These shortcomings in our family structures and academic approach lead to joblessness. Young men, in particular, cannot find jobs since they are not qualified.
In response, the young men have made criminal activity their ‘work’. We often read in the papers about men being employed to ‘put down a work’.
According to Anderson (1999), the inclination to violence springs from the circumstances of life among poor urban youth—particularly the lack of jobs, in general, and those that pay a living wage.
The society is split into two: the wealthy and the poor. The rich are radicalised by living in a bubble. They do not accept that the world is a complicated place which no single person controls. They believe that all others are incompetent.
The abyss that society needs to avoid is not their fault or doing: lazy no-good people are the cause of our ills. Many wealthy people have emerged from the pandemic better off than before. Yet, some prefer to point out the horrors of the crime.
They do not see their role in resolving the problem. Their funds are used to influence the politicians to create loopholes to avoid paying their fair share. But they are blind to the rising anger of those who are impoverished.
We have to find ways of helping to strengthen our families. The young men have to be shown another way of living. We must rethink our educational system. If not, we will pay the price of civil unrest.
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