Growing Humans
MM writes: Dear Caymanian Parents, We need to do better. Yes, we need to do better, each and every one of us. It has nothing to do with whether we are already great parents or not; it does not matter if our children already display signs of being a well-molded citizen – there is always room for us to do better. Our children require that we wake every morning with the ever-burning desire to be a better parent today than yesterday – their life depends on it.
Their life depends on how we live our life; their life depends on the wisdom and opportunities we, as the parents, provide to them in everything we do for them. Their life depends on what we feed them; we want strong healthy children, we must feed them safe, healthy food; unfortunately, these days that is easier said than done. Their life depends on what we make them hear, see, experience, every person they meet and every place they go will influence their overall being, and mold your human into what it will grow up to become.
In order to fix our society, we must plan well our future. Our children are our future, why are we not all making sufficient plans for the future?
As parents we cannot expect any other adult to instill the knowledge and experience in to our child the way we can – our child is literally a part of us, who better to teach them? So every day we must strive to do better and be better – because that is what we want them to do.
The problems in our schools are not there because teachers aren’t doing their jobs, it is because parents aren’t doing their job. There is no law, politician, fancy school or well thought-out curriculum that can help a student who lacks love, guidance and attention from the adults who they look to for these things as they learn and grow in the hostile environment that is planet earth.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, or the one to state the obvious, but the biggest problem, ‘the root of all evil’ (so to speak) in the Cayman community is bad parenting or entire lack of parenting. The crime problem is obvious; I am sure every prisoner in Northward has some youthful tale of woe. The home environment and family unit of a child is imperative to their success and well-being. The issue of troubled youth is not fresh on the scene in the Cayman Islands; it is one that has been around for decades and the incidences are consistently brushed under the rug to hide the signs of a deteriorating local society.
I recall clearly whilst in high school at the time, driving home with my mother as she listened to one of the local radio stations as an official was on-air denying the presence of gangs in Cayman (this was perhaps 2001 or 2002). As a student in the high school system I was shocked and proceeded to explain to my mother that we did have boys at school that associated themselves with various ‘groups’ within each community district and the groups were identified with certain colors.
The gang culture had started to spread at the time, boys wearing colored bandanas according to their gang. Rap music became dominant, the “skank” entered the school halls (distinguished bouncing style of walking, if it must be explained) – it had become ‘cool’ to be ‘gangsta’ in Cayman.
These same boys (between 12 and 18 I guess at the time), soon became teenage fathers with teenage mothers, and this soon created a culture of fatherless offspring, stressed and young single mothers, and a growing number of babies entering this world to immature, inexperienced and ill-equipped parents, primarily within the Caymanian society.
A well-raised human more often becomes a successful adult human than a human who lacked proper guidance in youth; though there are some who break the odds in either group, the majority remains.
Fortunately, in some instances, a human born to ill-equipped parents is lucky enough to have some other family member, friend, teacher or mentor who helps them navigate the journey of life and the human manages to integrate well into society.
Humans who lack adequate love, guidance, protection and attention are just about set up for failure from conception, and their offspring have less of a chance in many cases. Deprivation, hunger, poverty – these are all many factors in a young human’s life that lead to them growing up to become offenders, drug addicts or overall unsuccessful individuals.
It is sad that we would rather blame every outside source we can think of for the problems within our communities, but if we as parents took the time to equip our children with every tool they require on their journey through life, I think we would see some positive results in every area of life on this island.
We have to start giving our kids more than cell phones, iPads, toys, games and the latest fashion – we desperately need to give them our time and attention. We must start teaching them everything we wish we had known, and everything we know. We must show them all the secrets we learned along the way and explain all they should expect at every stage of their life.
We have to warn them about heartbreak, love and loneliness, and teach them about forgiveness, friendship and respect. We really must remind our kids that they can have all the wonderful things in life with hard-work and perseverance. We have to be honest and let them know they are not owed anything, by anyone – all they receive will usually be dependent on all they are willing to give. We must explain violence solves nothing and that everything that happens in high school won’t matter after graduation – you can only take your education with you after that.
We need to turn the radio off in the car on long drives and just talk – grow a relationship with your growing human and be its guide. It may sound weird, but yes, you are growing a human. You have been given that human to care and show the ropes of life on earth. You must teach it all the basics and the complexities of life, and if it somehow messes up – no matter how we hate to admit it – it is in one way, shape or form your fault, no matter what else or who else you want to blame. This is why we must always strive to do better, at the end of the day we are responsible for our human and how it integrates on this earth.
So please parents, care your human well during youth so that it does not become a menace to society or negatively affect my growing humans!
Category: Viewpoint
I notice that recommending abortions is as nonchalant as speaking of a crab spawning. Please remember that an abortion is actually killing a child before he or she has a chance to be born. I think considering the fact that a man and a woman will get together with unprotective sex perhaps we should encourage the use of condoms or other forms of protection instead of abortion for those who are not ready to be parents. This is so very sad – seems like some persons have completely lost their humanity. With promoting the homosexual agenda and now promoting abortions humanity is now positioning itself for annihilation.
Pro choice should be allowed.
The morning after pill. Abortions. All forms of birth control – including all available implants. Education on the availability of them should be provided in the high schools and disseminated to the public.
Basic human nature. If you read the excerpts in the Compass from the 1960s, today’s issues and concerns are essentially the same. The past was not all rosy and wonderful and the present is not dramatically different or worse.
But enough of that. I say we need testing and licensing before people are permitted to breed.
Vacuous piffle.
Nice commentary! Well done
Great article…well said.
The big elephant in the room here are the young Caymanian men that come from ‘good’ families and remain as unproductive as the ones that came from ‘difficult’ families.
These young men from ‘good’ families come from homes of love and have everything provided to them. They are educated in the sense that many will have higher education – university/college degrees. Yet these individuals cannot function well in the real working world. They are pampered by the parents and spoiled with no true responsibilities. They live at home, do not pay bills and own nothing. The aspirations are strong to want things but the actual true ability to go out and get by doing what it takes is lacking. The grit and work ethic just isn’t there.
What of those humans? They are a growing breed of humans. They may or may not have gotten married. They have children. They are generally supportive of their children financially and emotionally, but this too is hit or miss. Providing the absolute minimum of $300 a month is a drop in the bucket to real world expenses. Their offspring are not classified as coming from a poor environment such as described in the article, but it is not ideal either. The child is now living with the single mother who is on average a middle class Caymanian progressively climbing the ladder. The child is now seeing that they should aspire to be more because of the mother, but yet the father equally qualified illustrates it is okay to coast through life.
Insert the other elephant in the room of drug dependency of the unproductive father. Now before anyone jumps on this. There is a huge difference between social use and addiction/dependency.
The growing trend and cycle needs to stop. The parents of these young adult men tend to be successful in their own right. That success stops at the parents. There appears to be a significant gap between the successful parents and these unproductive young Caymanian men. The gap of a significant loss in ability to care about life.
Before anyone says this is just a typical description of West Bay. Take a look around, it is everywhere on island.
Please help Cayman with constructive comments on how to fix.
To who wrote the view point , very well explains the human problems in today’s society.
To the readers look at how many times the real problem was mentioned in the whole article, and you will understand what it takes to bring children up in this world today , and be productive citizens .
We have to remember that kids cannot just be brought in the world and left to feed , teach , love themselves, cause they are the kids and we are the adults that have been there done that and should know the difference between right and wrong to teach those kids.
I think that all young and old boys and girls and men and women , should read the article till they understand it before they have babies to see what it takes to bring good human life in the world.
There are plenty of good parents around. They are the ones who take the time to read your article. The bad parents don’t care what you have to say.
There is a saying. Who you are is where you were when.
I 100% agree. There a mother who had a son who became a teenager. They had a nice house, she had a good job but totally turned a blind eye to this boy. He was holding sessions in the evening, was still in school, in which he never went, stayed home and was selling drugs….you are going to tell me the school never contacted her? then long and behold he gets arrested for an alleged rape…hummmmmmm…house arrest, but still left the property..he was aquitted though..but later on was arrested for importation of firearms and a firearm in his vehicle. 9 years in jail where he belongs…100% it was the mother turning a blind eye or you know how the saying goes “not my boy” we have so many of them here in cayman. When your underage child is not home by a normal hour or just goes off and you have no idea where he is….there is something lacking here. STOP MAKING EXCUSES like I am a single mom….no one told u to become a single mom..so take the responsibility of the person you brought into this world!!!!
What if the single mother was raped and unfortunatley conceived. Would she be allowed to make excuses then?
to 8:47am…no she shouldn’t make any excuses…there is a thing called abortion or adoption…this mother was not raped so hence she has no excuses..
And the divorced and widowed mothers? Are they too classified under this harsh judgmental plane?
Yes they are…nothing is set in stone including marriage or divorce. Its easier to say yes then no….look at the president of the united states…he was raised by a single mother in the times when racism was at its worse…oh yes did i mention his mother was white also!!!
to 10:10am…what about these women who have 4-5 children all by different fathers? and doesn’t have a job to support them, just to have them? explain that? or these young woman in the 20’s having babies, but yet she nor “baby daddy” has health insurance for her nor the baby…and we wonder why we have problems
While I respect your point of view, there are some single mothers who did not ask to be single mothers. Many of us envisioned and planned to be in happy and healthy relationships with the father of our children. While I accept there are some who use this as an excuse and some of us ignored clear red flags before having children with the wrong men, please don’t lump us all in the same category. My dream and all my efforts were for a loving, committed relationship in which to raise my child. Up until she was born that was my reality but soon thereafter the responsibilities of parenting proved too much and he absconded from his parental role. What could I do but press on on my own. And I know I miss things, I know I get tired, I know I forget things and cant always be there for everything. I am only one person. Many single mothers break their backs for their children we are not all simply breeding vessels with no morals or goals. And for the record, I know many two parent households where NEITHER gives a monkeys about the children so I don’t think its fair to make assumptions.
An article that is true but very sad. This has been going on for years and a growing number of parents fall into the poor parenting category. Can it be changed? Perhaps, if everyone involved makes an effort to do so. It won’t be easy and it’s too late for a lot of Caymanian children…. and young adults. It will take many years to make much of a change, and it will take a combined effort of parenting and schooling and youth leadership to make it work. How many people reading this really care?
This is why they have abortion as an option.. or should at least.
omg really!!! I wonder who rubbed you the wrong way
Rub me wrong or rub me right so long as i’m getting rubbed.
Well said. It is the absence of abortions locally that is a significant factor in the breakdown in the education system and the growth in the crime rate.
Abortion should be legal in Cayman. Time to change this. Babies should not be having babies. So instead of us continuing the vicious cycle give these ignorant bunch options!
How about using birth control? They are plenty of options instead of getting pregnant and running Miami every month.
Anyone who has ever had a child and seen the ultrasounds and felt their baby’s kicks and seen their hiccups, knows without any doubt that life begins at conception. You people are sick to think that murdering an unborn helpless child is the answer. Such a selfish solution that comes from a perverted thought process convincing yourself the baby and society are better off dead. You have to give them a chance at living and let them decide whether they’d rather be murdered.
Some very small places on this planet have some of the best education systems in the world, particularly the smaller former Soviet states, and their graduates/crafts people are sort universally for employment. It is possible here, but the key is education, education and education, all good quality and none of the namby pamby stuff that goes on now here or in the UK.
That goes back to parenting. Even when the parents are poor or are not educated, they want more for their children and then push the children to succeed.
This is what the article is saying.
But hang on there a minute, isn’t the failures of Caymanian youth the expats fault? I clearly didn’t get the memo about actually admitting where real fault lies . Can we just go back to the easy way out , and blame expats , so much easier than just being good role models.
Do you want some ocean with your salt?
And you my friend are a perfect example of the problem the world faces.
I blame the expats. Or the PPM. Or the Mother Country.
Very well written observations. I hope all current and future parents pay attention. Now maybe we can get free condoms & pregancy terminations allowed.
I’m fairly certain free condoms have been available from the hospital for the last 10 years. If you didn’t know maybe they need to market it more. Would be interesting to know how much it is used too.
Shouldn’t they be preventing pregnancy instead of having abortions. Abortions isn’t a form of birth control.