Think of the children

THE EDITOR, Sir:

I feel compelled to respond to the Letter of the Day entitled 'Hands off our genitals' by Paul Jennings in The Gleaner of Monday, February 10, 2014. I wonder why we have the tendency to sensationalise and sexualise everything, and if we have all been relegated to being just a nation of genitals ... in our music, our advertisements, and now in our news commentaries.

At no time at all did I get the impression that Mr Ruel Reid was intent on 'handling anyone's genitals', and I think that with all the fuss and condemnation of his statement, Mr Reid has been the one brave enough to 'bell the cat', or at least try to. If we are to be honest with ourselves, we all know that the majority of the problems now facing us as a country stem from irresponsible family planning and parenting.

overcrowding

From the primary-school level to high school we have overcrowding of our schools; then we may have an exceptional student who could go on to tertiary-level education, but wait, they cannot go because his/her parent(s) did not consider that they would have to start investing in his or her future and they have three, four or more other siblings coming up, and so the promising child has to sometimes drop out of school to be home to help raise the others. If that child does go through high school, get a students' loan and make it through university, behold, there are no jobs, because our country cannot absorb all the children being produced!

With inadequate schooling, a likely unsustainable PATH programme, and scarce job opportunities, our young people are forced to go on the streets and we all know what happens then.

Mr Reid's Errors

Mr Reid only made two errors:

1. His word "mandatory" and;

2. Not qualifying to say "two children for those who cannot afford more in their present circumstance". I know that the next condemnation will be purely visceral as persons think of infanticide and abortions, but we do not have to go there. If a mother comes into hospital to have her second child under questionable support circumstances, there are contraceptive methods that can be applied, i.e., the contraceptive patch or the intrauterine device, both of which can be placed by the attending doctor right there in the hospital. These are reversible, do not require any further action on the part of the woman, and can be removed when the woman's circumstances change.

Listening to the persons wanting to 'have out their lot', many of these are the same ones without steady jobs and no way of guaranteeing the future of their children. I think it is time we stop listening to the 'brain' below our belt and start thinking of, and planning for each child we bring into this world. They are much too precious to be brought into this world 'by mistake'.

J. Thompson

Mandeville