- Michael SloleyMom, Maureen, centre, with Treveen and Sherard.
DR. TREVOR LITTLE, human resource management consultant, was selected by an arm of the local Seventh Day Adventist Union as a model father for their Men's Ministries seminar held between October 26 to 28.
We visit with this man, married for 26 years to Maureen, and father of two children, Treveen, 16, Sherard, 25, this week.
The father is an elder in the Meadowvale Seventh Day Adventist Church and managing director of HRD Profiles of Jamaica. When his first child, Sherard, was born, he was a young engineer. His wife was then a nurse at the University Hospital.
The chat with everyone, in a relaxed session in their immaculate Meadowbrook home, begins with a confession. The very day they took their son to the nursery, the father and mother say they took him back home without consulting each other, they both returned, simultaneously to remove him.
Sherard was ten months old then. "We both knew that it was it was wrong decision. We felt that the children really ought to be under our influence most of the time. You do not know how long you will be here so the need is there to make constant contact," Maureen tells Outlook.
She decided to stay home until Sherard was ready for school. In the period, she got a lot of 'fight', she recalls, from other family members who could not believe that she had a first degree and was staying home. But this was her decision.
In time, she started working at nights, so the only time she would be away from her son was when his father would be around. And, even though they had domestic help, they still took charge of baths and feeding. "We felt that was our responsibility," said Trevor Little.
When their daughter, Treveen was born nine years after Sherard, Maureen again left the job until this child was ready for high school. "All of her formative years I was at home," says Maureen. She would even go to her daughter's school to take her to the bathroom.
It was not a sacrifice. "It seemed like a privilege. Once, I met a batch-mate who had acquired her masters and I reflected that I could have done the same. But, then I said to myself that I had the benefit and the bonus of being there for my kids."
Maureen received 'lots of encouragement' from husband, Trevor.
Once every week, she was 'taken out' to lunch by her husband.
He took the children to school and sometimes away with him when travelling.
Driving through the country in the early morning with Sherard, he showed him youngsters on their way to the field before going to school. "What you enjoy is really a departure from what other fellows have to go through. Do not look down on them," he would tell his son.
The children were taken on business trips abroad as an extension to their socialisation. Even though some people objected to their removal from classes, "We felt it was part of the exposure they needed" the parents say.
Financially, the family survived on the salary of Little, then a young engineer. "It was always the family income, not hers or mine," says Trevor. Maureen, in the mean time occupied herself as an unpaid social worker. "She was always helping people, including the physically challenged and patients at the AIDS Hospice," he noted.
This last activity terrified her husband, who was frequently drafted to give service as a driver. "It blew my mind when she asked me to pick up someone who was HIV positive and bring her here, to the home for a visit." He eventually got acclimatised to her wishes.
While the children were in school, and before she returned to work full-time, the wife and mother also did several training programmes. "I did academic programmes as a means of self development but never to the extent where it compromised time spent with the children," she tells Outlook.
Dr. Little admits that not every family would be able to do what they have done, in terms of living on one income while the wife stayed at home.
