I am reading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby for the first time. On Wednesday, April 8, at the time of writing this, I have 10 pages to read before the end.
It is its beginning though that I reflect on while writing this. The first chapter opens with:
In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.
“Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
Reading those lines, one thinks of obvious advantages, such as education, income and wealth; but what about love, a protected childhood and stable family life? Having these conditions or circumstances in one’s life can also be advantageous.
I strongly believe that – although one should be mindful of another’s socioeconomic and/or psychosocial disadvantage(s) when overtaken by the urge to criticize – criticism from those who know better [I am not saying by those who feel they are better] can help to put the person who is being criticized at an advantage. That person can start to see certain behaviours in a different light and begin a process of change.
Knowing better versus feeling better than everyone else
My focus is on “knowing better” because I do not support destructive criticism. This type of criticism often targets what people do not have the means or power to change, such as how they look, who their family members are, etc.
I am a strong proponent of constructive criticism. This is defined as critical judgment expressed with knowledge that serves to improve or advance. Essentially, constructive criticism supports positive behaviour change.
The sad thing in our society is that whenever someone in a position of “knowing better” – let’s say through his or her education, experience and training – tells it like it is, the natural defence mechanism is to charge the person with thinking that s/he is better than others.
To me, the key distinction is that someone who feels they are better speaks from a position of superiority; whereas someone who knows better speaks from a position of authority.
In defence of the status quo, critics often charge the person who knows better, and speaks out on troubling societal issues, with “elitism”.
Those critics say things like, “S/he got a degree from a university that teaches values in opposition to ours. Now s/he wants to apply their theories to our situation. How dare s/he?
“By the way, does s/he have any children? So, how come s/he wants to tell me how to raise my child?”
By the way, I can picture parents saying now, “I speak from a position of authority, too! I’m an expert at child rearing! I know what it is to walk nine months with child. I feed my child. I clothe my child, and put a roof over our heads. I know what it means to be a parent. I am a parent!”
Neglect is the profile of child rearing in St. Kitts
Many of the speeches we heard last week in Warner Park ignited a debate over parenthood. What does it mean to be a parent? Do all parents parent [nurture and encourage the development of a child]? Are too many parents engaging in psychological abuse against children, aka child neglect?
Ingrid Charles-Gumbs, Director of Gender Affairs, said that “neglect is one of the most pervasive types of abuse in our society”.
Psychiatrist Dr. Sharon Halliday said that “parents need to know that abuse is not only sexual or physical, but can also be neglect”. Dr. Halliday added that the four types of child abuse are neglect, physical, sexual, and emotional abuse.
“Neglect is the profile of child rearing in St. Kitts,” said Maurice Williams, Director of the Department of Probation and Child Protection Services in the Ministry of Social and Community Development.
Williams and I talked late last week and scheduled a time to meet, but we never got a chance to sit down together before press time. The Director of the Department of Probation and Child Protection Services was extremely busy, he said, “With all the happenings of the past week.” I therefore did not get to include statistics in this report, in order to put child abuse and neglect in this society into context.
A number of counsellors I spoke with provided me with anecdotal information on child neglect.
“It’s not just limited to the poor people or the uneducated,” said Ruby Thomas, a primary school counsellor for the past 11 years. She added that “children have complained, even among middle income families”.
She said that sometimes parents are not even aware they are being neglectful because they live under the same roof with the child. In their minds, they do not fit the profile of either an absent father or absent mother.
By the time the parent comes home at night, the child is sleeping
“Some parents work long hours and the children don’t see them often; sometimes only on weekends,” Thomas said, adding that “by the time the parent comes home at night, the child is sleeping”.
I asked Ruby Thomas, “What do you say to those parents who would say, ‘Yes, I do come home late at night when my child is sleeping. However, my child has the best of this and the best of that, and is better off than his or her classmates’?”
Her response was, “Even if a child has the best shoes or the latest dresses, children need a lot more than that in their life. Children need warm, caring parents; parents who are very supportive in every area of their life.”
Thomas continued: “When I ask a child, ‘What is it you need most from the parent?’ they say love. They don’t say, ‘I need material things.’ Parents sometimes equate material things with love.”
“There are cases where each child has a bedroom and each child has a TV and I-Pod, but there is no interaction,” said Heather Richardson, a Human Resource Manager for Government. She has a counselling background.
“Everybody grabs something to eat. Everybody does what he or she wants. So that child is not getting that interaction with his parents. You buy him all the material things, but still he doesn’t feel loved. You hardly hug him. You don’t kiss him. You don’t say, ‘You’re doing a good job.’ You don’t say, ‘OK, you got three A’s this time. Good effort! I saw you studying every night. Keep it up!’ A lot of the children don’t really need all the material things parents are giving them,” Richardson said.
“What they will treasure most are the times parents devote to them,” she added.
“The parents who are doing it [showering their children with material items] miss the point that the fact that they didn’t have anything tangible [when they were children] often times meant that they learnt values that carried them through adulthood,” said counsellor Michelle Blake.
“It made them learn to be satisfied,” Blake said, adding, “I think they’re missing that [point] as an important connection there.”
Regarding the popular statement by some parents: “I don’t want my child to grow up like I did,” Heather Richardson had this to say. “Lots of times, parents just need to quell their conscience. “We’ve gone to an extreme. We’ve gone from one extreme to a next. You want to live out you in me,” Richardson said, referring to those parents who live vicariously through their children.
You chose the child’s father; the child had no say
It is apparent that some parents transfer not only their hopes and dreams to their children, but also their own feelings of frustration, heartbreak, and rejection. During the course of reporting this story, I heard stories about some single mothers who criticise their children for looking and acting like their absent fathers. It is as if they are taking out their feelings of disappointment and abandonment on their children.
Imagine the following scenario. Proud parents in town with their newborn baby stop to talk with friends. The baby looks so much like the father that at least one person remarks to the mother, “You were watching him straight in his face, no?” The mother blushes.
Fast-forward to a number of years later when mother and father have ‘fallen out; the child lives with the mother, who now plays her perceived strengths off the perceived weaknesses of the absent father. She does this subconsciously to hurt – or in a bizarre way to motivate – the young child.
How many of you have heard, or have been guilty of, the following? “You nasty just like you father people dem. You sure didn’t get that from me,” when a child fails to clean up a room or uphold a level of cleanliness that meets the single mother’s approval.
Heather Richardson has tough words for a mother who acts like this. “You chose the child’s father; the child had no say. When a mother tells a child, ‘You just like you wutless father,’ what does that say? You chose a ‘wutless’ man to be your child’s father!”
Richardson continued, “That mother introduced qualities into this child that he or she had nothing to do with. I have said to parents, ‘Stop telling the child that he ‘long long’ like his father. Did he choose his father?’”
When the children go to call for Mommy, the door is locked
Image stylist/consultant Lavern Davis is a single mother. Davis says she has a close relationship with her daughter who is in 1g1. She says it is important for single mothers to show their children love, affection and dedication, especially when they are dating.
Davis says parents need to protect children from being exposed to their sex lives. She says she has come into contact with several single women whose boyfriends spend a lot of time in their homes. Davis says she has heard that when the men stop by, they usually head straight to the bedroom with the mothers rather than to the living room or the yard for them to bond with the women’s children.
“Most of the time when these men come around, they go into Mommy’s bedroom,” Davis said, adding that “when the children go to call for Mommy, the door is locked. The man is coming in and the children now have to knock on the door to come to Mommy. Before that man was in there, they could have walked in and out. Then, when he’s gone [when the relationship ends], you’ve got to go back to your children like you failed again.”
Today, Wednesday, April 8, SKNVibes’ Editor-in-Chief Stanford Conway told me he had just been informed about an incident involving a man who allegedly struck his girlfriend’s five-year-old son. This alleged assault occurred yesterday at the babysitter’s house in Dorset.
The boy told his father about the incident when his dad visited him at school. His father immediately called the police, who intend to report the alleged incident to the Department of Probation and Child Protection Services.
A doctor later examined the child, certifying that his face was swollen. The boyfriend’s fingerprints also were visible on the child’s face.
According to the little boy, he was running around the babysitter’s house when the boyfriend hit him. This was not the first time the alleged abuse occurred.
The little boy told his father that, in the recent past, he went into his mother’s bedroom to ask for some juice and her boyfriend quickly shouted at him to leave the room. Some minutes later, he said they called him to get some juice. The boy said he refused the juice, saying, “I don’t want it anymore. Your hands are dirty. You were ‘wuking’ up!” After he made that comment, his mother allegedly flogged him.
These details suggest that when the five-year-old boy went to ask for the juice he saw his mother having sex with her boyfriend.
Such anecdotes give credence to the findings of a recent study undertaken by the Office for National Statistics in the United Kingdom. The study tracked nearly 8,000 children between five and 16 years old in 2004 and checked in on them three years later. Adding to a wealth of data outlining the emotional toll of divorce or parental break-up on children, it found that children from so-called broken homes are “five times more likely to suffer mental troubles”.
In order to thrive, a child must always know that there is hope!
I can hear it now: that collective groan from the well-adjusted adults who grew up in single parent households.
My perspective on this is, yes, studies show that children without two active parents face dimmer prospects than their peers raised by two active parents. However, God forbid that the child from a single parent household adopts a deterministic attitude, thinking s/he will most likely become a negative statistic.
There are many single parent households that are healthy, in part to a reliance on a strong support network. Strong, healthy relationships instill a sense of hope in children.
In order to thrive, a child must always know that there is hope!
That’s why it is important to shine a light on behaviours some parents – both single and married – prefer to keep in the dark. Getting these negative behaviours out in the open help parents to process what they are doing to their children. Hopefully, this will lead to positive behaviour change.
Advice from mental health professionals also facilitates behaviour change. So parents must be open to accepting professional advice. Our society needs the expertise of mental health professionals now more than ever.
My favourite cartoon in childhood, G.I. Joe always ended each episode on this note: “So now you know and knowing is half the battle. YO! JOE!” In tribute to childhood, I end here.
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