Devon Dick AS WE prepare to celebrate emancipation from slavery, it is important to be emancipated from poor family life. It is well known that under slavery, our fore-parents were not encouraged or allowed to get married.
Men were prized for stud virility and women for multiplying and filling up the farm. Families were auctioned off to various owners and fathers were emasculated with the responsibility of parenting being the purview of the slave owner. This mental scar afflicts family life in Jamaica.
Last Wednesday, Mr. Lawrence Fraser, project co-ordinator for the PSOJ/VMBS-sponsored "Better Family Life" effort, at his first community meeting in a church, reeled off frightening statistics - 90% children in the Corporate Area are born out of wedlock and 60% of the children do not have their fathers' names on their birth certificates; high percentage of teenage pregnancies and incidence of women being the sole responsible parent.
Happily, there was not the harping only on the terrible condition but having done the research, with the help of Dr. Barry Davidson of Family Life Ministries, writer Faith Linton and Elder Anthony Gordon of the Seventh-Day Adventist denomination, some videos and workbooks have been produced that encourage and facilitate better family life, parenting and marriage.
SERIOUS CRIME LEVEL
This initiative started as part of the efforts of the then president of the PSOJ, the Hon. Oliver Clarke, to tackle the serious crime level and improve the social fabric of the nation. The low marriage rate caught his eye and he believed that marriage should be encouraged and then after a promotional campaign, the results should be measured to evaluate the success of the programme. The committee of corporate leaders, church leaders and academics thought that a broader focus would be better. Hence, the addition of parenting and family life to the marriage emphasis.
However, it is not clear what measurement will be used to evaluate the success of the programme but one is necessary.
This programme is of utmost importance. The same night Lawrence Fraser was showing the videos and talking to church members and students of Caribbean Graduate School of Theology about the importance of parenting there was a commotion outside of which the participants were unaware.
STRANGLING THE CARETAKER
A parent, in full view of his 11-year-old child and other children, threatened to kill the caretaker and was in the process of strangling the caretaker all because he believed that the caretaker had stolen his cellular phone. Later, he changed the story to say that if he did not steal his cellular phone from the car at least he should know who stole it. This caretaker has had an unblemished record of service for 15 years and a parent wanted to snuff out his life over a cellular phone. He did not threaten to report it to the police or to demand that it be replaced but took justice into his own hands on church property in front of his daughter.
As Ian Boyne in his Sunday article "The Church and the crisis in morals" warned the Jamaican church so insightfully, "there is a whole world out there which is burning - while you are fiddling".
There are men who will rape and murder the 12-year-old Janealle Blairs of this world. There are care-givers in children's home and other places who will molest minors. The Better Family Life project could not have come at a better time.
As was observed last Wednesday, persons will go to institutions to learn a trade, skill or just to acquire knowledge however; we do not spend time honing our parenting ability. But parenting is one of the most challenging careers for a person.
It takes time. Parenting is a commitment that is life-long and for the first 18 years needs undivided attention. Parents must spend time to understand the needs of the child at the various stages of development. The parent must teach by words and actions what it means to be loving, kind and responsible.
As we celebrate Emancipation Day on Friday, let it be a time to commit ourselves to emancipating ourselves from poor family life practices and that can be achieved if civil society joins the PSOJ/VMBS project and help get the information on better family life to all.
The Rev. Devon Dick is pastor of The Boulevard Baptist Church, St. Andrew.
