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Rants from a Jamaican British Woman

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

I listened with interest this morning to a radio four's discussion on why so many young men get involve in robbery and violence on our streets. John App Rhys Price whose son was brutually murdered for a mobile phone and £20 was dignified and restrained in his comments and see a lack of facilities for excluded and bored young people as a part of the problem. Camilla Batman-Ghaleigh and another young ladies name who I did not catch describe a wider more endemic problem. I tend to agree with them that it is a systemic problem and one that starts even before some of these young people are born. Many are coming from homes, where they have been brought up with little sense of responsibility. Their homes are often not safe secure places, but where violence between spouses are commonplace, as is violence towards children. Family members as well as the children within those families often feel excluded from wider society, by virtue of their status which might include, poor and overcrowded homes, lack of educational attainments, lack of jobs, lack of access to facilities that more contained families may see as normal. Other issues such as racism and deliberate exclusion and oppressive behaviours towards some minority ethnic groups can lead to some young people feeling that there is nothing in wider society to align themselves to. Gang membership and the inclusion that they offer becomes a way of life for some. As a single parent who have brought up three wonderful children, and I speak for many other single mothers I know who have all brought up wonderful young people, I would absolutely assert that what happens to our children, how they turn out cannot be divorced from the stories they live within their immediate families. Parents need to love, respect and value the children they bring into this world. Being a single parent should not in itself be a pre-rquisite for parenting alone. Fact is most children do have two parent's and whatever the differences that develop between them as adults, it is important that wherever possible they try to keep in mind the needs of their children and make every effort to input and impact positively on their children's upbringing. It is parents who are responsible for giving their children a 'good start'. We cannot wait for children to become teenagers, before we start trying to fix them. By that time, we as parents and the wider society will already have failed them miserably. I will also add that it imperative that part of state intervention in families lives have to start with ensuring that all children are given a chance to thrive, and that includes ensuring and helping parents provide a decent physical space for their children and themselves from which they can create a home. Children need, physical, moral, spritual and psychological, and material input. It is difficult for many parents to achieve these ideals if their physical living condition is cause for concern. Everything that has been done up to date is simply half measures. With RIGHTS comes RESPONSIBILITIES. Conversations about what it means to be a parent needs to happen in homes and schools. Never mind sex education, parenting education would go some way to stop disaffected young people rushing into parenthood and then turning into another generation of neglecting parents. Fit young people who see nothing for them because of having no secure base, need frankly to be made to work, or put into the armed forces (that said coming from a pacifist). My point is simply sitting on street corners and or using idle hands to make mischief should not be an option. When I was bringing up my children, I was not afraid to tell them that living off me/and or the State was not an option. It was university or work. They all choose the former, followed by the latter. It seems to me that if parents cannot help their children to make decisions other than ones that continue to brutalise them and others, then the State need to assume responsibility for these young people and make sure they are channelled into edcuation and/or careers. The cost to us as a society in the long run will be so much less. Prisons and Mental Health instutions cost us the taxpayers a fortune, not to mention the impact on us as a society of the mindless violence being carried out by these young people. How many more mothers must mourn the gun/knife murder of a son? How many more App Rhy's Prices? No family rich or poor deserve to bury a child because of the mindless, thoughtless, needless violence of another. Let's all try to genuinely make the effort to build a society where such acts of violence truly become abhorent. Let's inspire and enable our all our children. Respecting children and young people, building their self-esteem and self-confidence will go a long way to changing our society.

.: posted by womanist 1:46 AM