I choose today to say that the thinking that because of our history of slavery where men were used as studs and families were forcibly split up and consequently our men have no sense of family and responsibility can be changed. This can be changed by the choices our men make.

I grew up with a father, Fergus Simpson, who chose to change the historical pattern. This was in the 1960s when few men would be found taking their daughters to the doctor, buying their clothes and grocery shopping. It was my father who spoke to me about menstruation. My father did all these things while pastoring ten churches in Northern Clarendon. I honour him for the choices he made. I am happy to see that there are organisations being developed to address this matter of fathering in our society, but more needs to be done.

Disintegrating family structure

In Jamaica, the stable family structure is disintegrating. Family provides an environment in which children are reared and in which individuals find support and nurture. In our country, the nuclear family with father and mother and children is becoming extinct. The single-parent family headed by a mother is the norm. This structure does not provide the balance of a father figure in the home. Research has shown that for the proper development of the child, both mother and father need to be involved in the rearing of the child. In Jamaica, with over 80 per cent of our children born out of wedlock, comes an alarming statistic that over 50 per cent of that number has no named fathers. With such a situation where many of our men are not taking responsibility for their offspring, is it any wonder that we are in this situation of crisis with our youth.

Fatherlessness is having a devastating effect on the psyche of our youth and consequently our nation. This phenomenon is evident in the classrooms. There is a clear correlation between undisciplined behaviour and the absent father figure or the father who is just a presence in the home. Legislation needs to be created which makes it mandatory, not just for fathers' names to be on birth certificates, but for men to take responsibility for their offspring. Consequences should be brought to bear on those fathers who do not take care of their children. Now, it is not only the fathers who are abandoning the children, but the mothers also.

When I was a child, single mothers had ambition for their children to achieve more than they had. They would teach their children morals and values, even if they themselves had failed in these. They would send the children to Sunday or Sabbath School to get the rudiments of a religious education. They would sacrifice to see that their children attended school so that they could try to better themselves. These days, much of this has changed. Our parents have little values themselves to pass on to the children. Parents leave their children with grandmothers who are so ill they cannot even look after themselves; with siblings who, themselves need supervision; with aunties who use these children as slaves. In the meantime, they go off to the United States or greener pastures to send home barrels to make up for their lost presence.

Many persons who are parenting these days have no idea how to do so. They have neither the knowledge nor the attitude needed to parent. This is one of the most difficult jobs in this modern world, yet it is one in which no training is required or qualifications needed in order to get the job. With a society which is increasingly focused on doing what you feel, when you feel like it, how you feel like it, with whomever you feel like it, very few have a solid, objective standard of morals and values. The solid, moral foundation provided by the Bible is no longer held in respect. It is feelings, it is raking in the dollar at whatever cost that are now valued.

So, with no moral and ethical base or objective standard, we have lost our moorings, our young people have lost their way because the older generation have left them to drift in this immoral, godless wasteland.

Addressing parenting practices

We must realise that it is a matter of urgency that we as a nation seek to address our family life and parenting practice. I endorse former Prime Minister Edward Seaga's view outlined in his article in The Gleaner on May 13 that we need to "train parents to train children." Furthermore, I believe that legislation needs to be put in place to bring changes in the family-life practices in this nation. With each developmental level, there needs to be mandatory parenting classes. It needs to be legislated that parents from the basic-school level rightthrough to the end of high school be required to attend parenting classes. We need to establish community organisations which hold families accountable for the care of their children. They should be empowered to go in and investigate if there is a complaint of abuse. They should seek to implement training and rehabilitative action in the home. We need to return to where we accept that it takes a village to raise a child. We must begin to mend the moral fabric of the society and it has to start with the family.

We have started to look at the care of our children with the establishment of the Children's Advocate and the Child Development Agency, but this agency needs to have more trained officers to deal with the issues that relate to our children. They are so stretched that many times, cases that are referred to them take an extremely long time to be dealt with. This is not good enough. More resources need to be put to this arm to deal with matters which relate to our children.

I repeat the cliché that our children are our future. Our future is in jeopardy unless immediate intervention takes place to secure and protect them.