Dear Reader,

I am convinced that when all is said and done, everything boils down to family. No nation can be built without strong families, and a strong family structure is the most certain guarantee there is of a solid, healthy and robust society.

It is that fact that keeps eluding the “movers and shakers” of Jamaica. Those with the influence and the power keep throwing the country’s increasingly limited resources at the “branches” of the problem, without attending to the “roots”, and with little regard for the ineffectiveness and counter-productivity of the exercise. Nobody seems to want to tackle the root problem, which in my view is the problem of family life.

Just about every problem afflicting the society has its genesis in the quality of family life, and every hurting adult I have met can usually trace their pain back to early childhood. Amidst the many and varied issues, the problem of early and casual sexual activity and single parenting stand out as two major contributors to familial instability in Jamaica.

Teenage pregnancy is as clear an indicator as any of a society’s developmental potential, or lack thereof. Since the last major family planning campaign of the 1980s, “Two is Better Than Too Many”, funded largely by the Dutch charity, the Van Leer Foundation, no serious and sustained effort has been made to focus on the issue. It was proved that the Van Leer initiative cut the birth rate by almost half at the time. It was a highly successful venture, but was not sustained in the same way after the Dutch entity discontinued its funding.

Two decades later the picture is much worse, and the expansion of services for teenage mothers is proof of that fact. It is not just that adolescents from the poorest classes in the society are having babies, it is also that the ages are getting lower and lower. Health workers at places like the Victoria Jubilee Hospital in Kingston say that it is now quite normal for them to be treating pregnant 12 year olds. On a visit to that institution two Christmases ago, my colleague and I were asked to pray with a

15-year-old whose baby had died at birth. The tears rolled down the teen’s face as we spoke to her. It pained our hearts to see her grieving the way she was over her dead baby.

In the “wheeling and dealing” with the International Monetary Fund, the government must insist that certain critical social programmes, including and especially support for family planning services, be maintained and strengthened. Having been down that disastrous and counter-productive road with the IMF before, it should be crystal clear that social stability cannot be bartered for debt repayment. It didn’t work under the first IMF agreement, and it won’t work now. Unplanned and unwanted children not only put undue pressure on the already stretched and fragile social apparatus – the situation contributes to the dynamics of crime and general social disorder that have a direct bearing on investment and productivity. In a scenario of chaos and anarchy, nobody benefits – not the IMF, not Jamaica.

The problem of single parenting is another key indicator of Jamaica’s family life crisis. With close to 80 per cent of children born out of wedlock, Jamaica’s statistics rank us as one of the highest countries per capita with that type of social dysfunction.

The situation is untenable, and while many single parents continue to beat the odds in raising their children without fathers, the picture is far from ideal. Every expert will tell you that children need two parents who are an active and loving part of a child’s support system. Today’s environmental and social complexities make parenting increasingly difficult generally, let alone for those who are single parents. In fact, given what I describe as the “anti-child” climate that currently exists, children actually need more than two parents working on their behalf. They also need “mentors” – positive role models who can help them to navigate their life paths as well as being inspirers and friends.

The steady deterioration of family life is anathema to the proper functioning of any society, and Jamaica is no exception. The absence of strong nuclear families; the unavailability of extended family members; parental migration, and the “hustling to survive” street culture, among other serious social and economic factors, all combine to make family life difficult to establish and maintain.

However, there are ways to begin correcting the problem and reconstructing family life, starting, it seems to me, with the lawful registering of fathers’ names on the birth certificates of their children, and the provision of decent living conditions for families. Add to those a powerful and sustained public education campaign focused on family planning, teenage pregnancy and good parenting practices, and the results will bear fruit over time.

I’m afraid there are no quick fixes, but if the problem is tackled aggressively right now, our chances of reversing this serious trend would be significantly enhanced.

With love,

bab2609@yahoo.com