–to understand the new that is imposing, commanding change

WE who have raised children have witnessed among family and friends the rise and fall of overzealous swift compromises towards promises of ‘betterment’ that were followed by harsh ricocheting realities, and sufferings.

We have come to understand, for a moment, the swift rush of the accelerated life we are enveloped in today. The fact is that parental guidance cannot be leaned upon as a concept of pre-acquired knowledge, thus failure of that instinct requires justifiable blame. It must be acknowledged that parental guidance, at least with humans, is not a reliable, instinctive tool, or possibly never was, simply because parenthood is a biological process that can happen to even the most mentally challenged of minds. Thus, a more sensible construct should be developed to express models of parenthood, supported by a functional national support board of professionals possessing learned and experienced personnel.

Over the recent past years, we can identify several domestic murders that involve inputs of mothers, in one case aunts, who, from some inner motivation, thought it current wisdom to instruct a younger soul to appeal to deception, coveting what was designed (real estate) as collective interests. This was a deviating corrupt act that had the potential towards serious repercussions, that in cases did unveil, with fatal results.

I have learnt that it is necessary to evaluate the mindset of relatives before allowing your offspring to be cuddled by their sometimes hidden preferred philosophy. Family interactions do not mean agreement with your expectations; with adherence to attitudes in keeping with your traditional voiced core values. For example, inferences that contradict proven knowledge are common contributors to deviations that intrude, resulting in bad results, as with the following example: During the initial onslaught of narcotics, as an alternative get-rich-quick answer to hard times in Guyana, coupled with the hype of now-come local TV stations that carried suggestive Hip-Hop music seemingly 24 hours a day, a father warned a teenage daughter to beware of the young men who approached her, imaged in the get-rich-quick profile, beware of ‘Blood Money’ if the higher percentage has bad repercussions. The child disobeyed that advice, and an incident later developed that resulted in the involvement of the father, who was able to avert escalation. In scolding his daughter, he said to his child, “Didn’t I tell you about duh blood-money excitement?” The child responded, “Auntie ‘X’ said that deh ent got no ‘blood money’; that fuh think like duh gon humbug progress.”

There are false attitudes that have always infiltrated our core values, but cultural and secular laws have always retained a certain balance, for example: “The respect of talent and skill above elitist creeds. The value of character and envisioned community uplifting purpose over questionable wealth. The values that envelope matriarchal respect; the protection for womanhood/manhood and the elderly- vice versa. Credibility of workmanship, the given word as bond, collective responsibility for the weak and vulnerable etc.” All these and more were not cast in stone, but were adhered to, enabling, as main features in the creation of the society we evolved in, despite hardships, the self-centered and marginalisation.

What happened is our lack of responsibility to pay attention to what exists now and evaluate this era’s impositions. Exploring what we ignored in the process led to the current self-centred callous eclipse. Especially as what we can observe has influenced the level of our young. What have our courts, media, entertainment and the creators of the modules of our formative scholarship missed? We cannot blame entirely the managers if the conversation never happened. The fact is that this article is an indication of the nature of the conversation. Let us look at a reference of what has made inroads into our culture, greeted as social media sub-cultures first, that have evolved as habits in our schools: the pornographic filming of students by students, were there investigations, charges, public statements by authorities? I cannot remember if there were charges. The filming of intimacy has become a callous instrument of extortion among young people and may be responsible for more than one suicide. So, what has legitimised this drift into the pit? Economics, ego, whatever; it remains a twisted mental collapse of the cultural creed of relationships, worse than the twisted rapists of my youth, and we despised them, not having the scientific data, we referred to them as sicko’s and weirdo’s not allowed to hang with us ‘Alright Banna’.

Today, we have the means to counter the social orders that have been explored so far. They are spread everywhere but can be harnessed to the call if the conversation begins, the required seriousness is genuine, and the necessary freedom understood.