EDITORIAL - Focus on the family

The breakdown in the relationships of families in Barbados has long been under the microscope and has been the topic of many seminars. This breakdown has been blamed for the decline in the ‘practice of morality’ that is being exhibited in schools, in some cases the workplace, and generally in public. 

 

Research has confirmed what many have shied away from admitting – that the reduction with regard to the influence of the extended family in the household, the lack of communication between parents and children and the breakdown of the nuclear family unit in many cases (divorce of parents or split in civil partnerships), have all played a part in the state of society today. Hence, it is clear that a situation has been created that must be rectified in the near future for fear that the deterioration of family life in our country might reach the point of no return.

 

This week in the press, we saw a coroner’s inquest which summarised a broken relationship between mother and child; and this year also, we saw a father being allowed to take his children to live with him overseas because of the fractured relationship between them and the mother and stepfather. One might opine that this level of family breakdown is associated with moral decline in society. Further, we have also noticed that many families are not communicating. Children from a very early age are also spending long hours playing video games or watching television. The children are not taking part in activities with their parents or guardians, hence there is no constructive teaching during those times.

 

For some time, these challenges were discussed among scholars and extended through the media to the public with the desired effect of improvement to this state of affairs. Situations exist where some parents are not aware of their children’s whereabouts, neither do they know or care about who their children’s friends are, so they are constantly roaming freely without any adult supervision or care. 

 

It was once believed that the village raised the child but this system of upbringing does not seem to exist anymore. Some parents are becoming more insular when it comes to the raising of their charges and less trustful of what are deemed ‘outsiders’ who have ‘no business’ in what goes on in the family. This begs the question: where are these children going to learn how to become active, contributing members of society if the necessary support is not there?

 

Many parents, in an effort to fill the gap between themselves and their children, depend on the schools to rectify their situation since communication between parent and child has become so awkward that when the need arises to correct that child, the action seems foreign to both parties involved.

 

There are some individual entities in this country that are committed to the improvement and the reversal of the direction that family life and by extension, society have taken, and they are actively trying to promote this stability that is lacking through youth groups or community groups. This is commendable, but that bond between parent and child is also necessary. Even the action of watching television or playing video games can be translated into bonding and learning time if children and parents do this together sometimes.

 

Therefore, Barbadians need to focus on rebuilding these relationships so that hope is not lost with this generation of young people or the next.