Ronald Thwaites | The two-parent advantage

Once nearing Father’s Day, a journalist pressed me to say what was the most important thing my father had given me? Was it money, car, a house, a paid-for education, she pressed. My reply was that he had given me none of those things, but something far more valuable. He, along with my mother, had bonded to gift me the privilege of a two-parent home and constant support to grow.

Many of the women I know have a one child with whom they struggle mightily to raise with more or less contact or contribution from whoever was their partner. Among all classes, this pattern has become normative. Recently women were encouraged in a very popular advice column that if they found themselves unattached in their thirties, they should find a man, “married or single”, get him to impregnate them and thus have a source of support in later life. Sounds very pragmatic and transactional.

Come with me to most parent-teacher meetings in Jamaica and try to find 10 per cent of fathers in attendance. The percentage improves somewhat at graduation. Many girls grow up without a consistent and sensitive relationship with their natural fathers. It is so frequent that we think little or nothing of it. Raising a child or children as a single parent imposes withering responsibilities and is likely to have a negative effect on the child.

Right now the education system, already flawed, is further compromised by severe behavioural problems. Teachers try, but ultimately blame parents for mal-adjusted students. Children of cooperating parents, married or not, plenty money or little bit, are far less likely to misbehave or underperform than those without such support.

JUST COMPARE

In the United States, Asian-Americans are outperforming Afro- and Hispanic-Americans socially and economically because of their significantly tighter family structures where two-parent households are prevalent.

The extended families of our past where grandparents or “goddies” took up the slack of absent or inadequate parents has been savaged by increasing poverty and migration, the destruction of rural culture, as well as the reality that many “elders” are themselves blighted by illiteracy and less-care. And the cellphone and social media have taken the place of the church community.

The heritage of slavery and plantation society, the perversion of liberalism , that philosophical parent of the sexual revolution and the selfishness and in-bred inequality of post-modernism have all conspired to devalue the two-parent advantage in family creation among us.

A married couple visited an inner-city grade 11 class recently. Their lifestyle was alien to a majority of the students. Most young people expressed reservation about committing to a lifelong partner. Boring. unnatural. But all expressed the intention to parent their own children.

Sorry for them. Sorry for Jamaica. True, a bad marriage can be as toxic to children as an inadequate single-parent situation, but there is no substitute for joint commitment to child-rearing. With the cruel, unrelieved spike in the cost of living, most families need two incomes just to survive and to make time to bond with children. As great as is the danger of hate speech, is the squashed discussion about creating and encouraging viable family structures.

In 2024 Jamaica must intentionally promote stable two-parent families. That is what the EU/ACP treaty ought to be enjoining us and assisting us to do instead of foisting gender choice. Until we treat family culture, which includes tolerance of diversity, as crucial to national development, social order will be weak, rampant crime will persist and individual flourishing and overall economy will be compromised.

FOUR WHO INSPIRED

Ralph Gonsalves showed true Caribbean leadership in arranging and hosting a meeting between presidents Ali and Maduro last week. His effort raised the pedigree of our region. Ralph showed that we can be bold and constructive peacemakers. That is a very big move. He was supported by most regional leaders. But where was our man? In recent history, Jamaica’s leaders had such stature that they would be in the forefront of diplomatic effort. Not so now.

Ignore the fatuous nonsense about the southern Caribbean not being our sphere of interest. We are scurrying to catch what we can of the booming Guyanese economy and our relationship with Venezuela has been devalued by us to our own peril. The reality is that Ralph, Mia, Keith and the others ‘first us’. Our foreign policy is becoming fitful and peevish. Isaiah Chapter 58 v. 7 commands us to “never turn your back on your own”.

SISTER THERESA CHING

Sister Theresa Lowe Ching, a Catholic sister of Mercy who died recently distinguished herself as a highly regarded female theologian and teacher. Fearlessly she took on the hitherto male-dominated theological patriarchy by offering a vindication of the liberating power of the Christian Gospel in the neo-colonial reality of countries like ours. A fully daughter of Chinese immigrants, Sister Theresa did foundational work in establishing a tradition of Caribbean theological reflection upon which others must build.

Canon Abner Powell did simple things of massive importance. He served, inspired and protected the people of West Kingston for close to half a century. In most difficult and violent times he never ran away. He was respected for his constancy and his integrity. And more, as chaplain at the great Kingston College for umpteen years, his presence and firm kindness saved the future of so many young men whose emotional disturbance was caused largely by family dysfunction. He helped them to thrive by developing an earthy, practical spirituality. Every school needs someone like him. The decrepit VW Bug which he adorned, reflected his humility and carelessness for the material in favour of enduring values.

Then out of the Nazareth of Portland came Eddie Baugh, whose poetry and prose, delivered lyrically in tones as if impelled by the troubled flows of was it the Rio Grande or the Swift River; sometimes raging, other times soothing, always telling of the soul depths of who we are. To hear him was to better appreciate ourselves and be grateful to share Caribbean and Jamaican identity with him.

These lives stir hope and new purpose – appropriate for the freshness and wonder of Christmas!

Rev Ronald G. Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. He is former member of parliament for Kingston Central and was the minister of education. He is the principal of St Michael’s College at The UWI. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.