BASSETERRE, St. Kitts, 29 December 2009 - Presentation at the Rotary Club of Liamuiga's Family Month Meeting by Sargeant-At-Arms of the Club, Arch Deacon Valentine Hodge.
Given our present statistics, most families in the Caribbean region do not start with a marriage union between father and mother. There is a physical attraction at the start, which more often than not issues in a pregnancy, which also can become the first of many, either for the same partner or another, and then after several of those deliveries, the woman still has no one whom she can call a husband, and the man has many from whom he can choose to make his wife!
It is this situation which has caused some sociologists and social commentators who have studied Caribbean social phenomena, to speak and write extensively about common-law unions, faithful concubinage and visiting relationships in our region, as poor relations of the nuclear family. This may be so because as men marry women (women do not normally propose to men) it is to be presumed that most men are cautious; yet because sex belongs to marriage, the dangers of exploitation and moral ineptitude, by either partner can be real. It did not help the cause of building stronger families either, when President Woodrow Wilson of the United States once said of marriage – ‘it is neither hell nor heaven; it is simply purgatory!’
All of us have belonged to a social group at some point in life, and as the family is the smallest and most cohesive social unit, there was never a time in life when we did not belong to a family, for each one of us has been a member of a family at one time or another. It may not have been a nuclear family in the classical sense, but a family nonetheless, even if it consisted of mother and child, or father and child. What St. Paul said of the Church is no less true of the family: “If one organ suffers, they all suffer together. If one flourishes, they all rejoice together.” So too if one family member receives joy, all family members rejoice; if the family is in grief all members are in grief. Think of it, the family is only a handful of persons, of varying ages, temperaments, and interests who learn how to face together the vicissitudes, the joys and sorrows which life brings to them. The family, therefore, is a school for living which has no substitute, for there more than anywhere else is learned this interdependence which gives meaning to life.
A husband and a wife deeply in love with each other, do not need children to justify their love. Yet they normally long to have children because they need to share their love for each other, and with others who have a special relationship with them. So it is that in parenthood men and women discover another aspect of that image of God in their lives. Parenthood lets us into sharing in the act of creation; we are able to receive an ‘inward experience’. This is the reason so many husbands and wives find parenthood a deeply moving, religious experience.
But parenthood is not just a matter of having two or three babies. It is a solemn commitment to provide a closely knit environment in which a new generation can discover the meaning of life, and the values upon which life must be based. It is because of the small number of people involved, the intimacy of their relationship and the long period of time in which they are in close touch with each other, that the family has a greater educational influence than any other group in society.
We need families in which to grow up, to become mature, law-abiding citizens and thereby help to make a worthwhile contribution to society. The current level of crime and violence in our several communities especially as seen among our youth, speaks to the gradual (some even say rapid) breakdown in home and family life. But parents are the ones who must help to build stronger families; for if the families are strong, the nation will be strong; and if the nation is strong, this promotes peace and stability in our world.
Of course, related to building strong families is the whole question of honouring parents in the home, which more and more is becoming a thing of the past. If children respect parents, society will be strengthened and its life prolonged. If accumulated wisdom can be passed on, we are less likely to make disastrous mistakes of the sort which can bring a society down. If we insist that there is no wisdom except what we learn ourselves, we are far more likely to run into trouble. You see, our age is increasingly given to disbelieve that wisdom can be handed down from a father figure, and our youth are believing more and more that tomorrow is more important than today, and that yesterday is completely gone – hence families are not learning from the mistakes of the past. In short, our age opposes vehemently any idea of obligation to the family. So we are finding that respect for elders in the home is against the cult of individualism. Gaining currency too is the basic belief that we live to ourselves and we die to ourselves. There is also a firm ultra-modern thought-pattern, that no other living soul has a right over us to advise, or even to command honour or respect. But you and I believe that authority comes from above and it is such authority and discipline which are at the heart of society, and in the family, and it is these which ultimately hold society together.
Today’s radicals, even intellectuals, seem intent on blowing the family apart. Our permissive society opposes discipline and particularly discipline within the family. The tidal wave of juvenile crime covers the Federation of St. Kitts & Nevis. The police seem incapable of dealing with the breakdown of family discipline, as are the schools. The state, therefore, is not capable of taking over the functions of the family. So the youths are turning to gangs to find meaning, wisdom and purpose. This is why we need to be building in every way we can, stronger and more stable families in order to promote the social health of our communities, and for the survival of all of us in St. Kitts & Nevis.
