Dear Editor,

Jamaica is reaping the harvest of failed parenting. It is known that the home is the first and most important institution of learning — the institution that creates posterity for local, regional, and international societies.

Problems are created when children are left to be reared by external institutions —though these have resulted in some successful outcomes, they are not the ideal.

Whilst there is no stipulated manual on parenting, it is incumbent on every adult who wishes to raise children to ensure that he or she learns and practices the best principles of humankind. These could be summed up as honesty, truthfulness, emphasis on work, spiritual awareness, love of knowledge, and respect for each other. Of course, the list can be expanded.

This year’s Parents’ Month theme ‘Reignite the village’ is just a start to the multifaceted ways that the bull can be taken by the horn. All institutions are called to play their part — home, Church, school, politics.

I had the opportunity to share with various groups of parents in the month of November and was able to emphasise that the reignition of the village is a concept of the mind. Only a changed mindset of the partner, children, home, society, country, and the world will result in the ideal Jamaica we desire.

A failed State is only the result of failed parenting —women and men who have children like guinea pigs and have failed at discipline; failed at education; failed at nurturing; failed at being proper role models; failed at calling wrong, wrong; and failed at teaching children to be responsible individuals and citizens of the world.

Failed parenting is the result of the glorification of crime and violence, covetousness, the glorification of a dunce culture, the disregard for law and order, and the cyclical nature of “a suh mi bawn and a suh mi a tan”.

What a woe! Failure is not final, though. There is hope.

Everton Tyndale

evaT_78@hotmail.com