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Today, I want to take a look at raising our children. Over the years, the way we raised our children was based on the norms and culture of the society we lived in. Such culture and practices evolved from years of experience handed down from generation to generation. I learned early in the day that one has to bend the tree when it is young. Let me look at how I believe we should raise our children.
First, they should learn to respect their parents. I know some of you cringed when I made that comment because children are having children these days, and many of the parents are worse than the children. That is something the state must deal with. We should teach the children to take care of themselves first, followed by taking care of the environment. They can then learn about developing into functional citizens committed to building the nation. During this time, the children from three to five should be learning by having fun. Love must be at the center of everything the child does.
We need to go back to the days when children were responsible for cleaning their classrooms at the end of the day. We need to go back to the days when children had to display their best manners, especially when they were in the presence of teachers. Teachers are now referred to as 'teacher bwoy' and 'teacher gal'.
They need to grow up in an environment where we all speak English or another language that is international. There is no need to teach them patois. Patois is spoken all over the country. There are several derivatives of patois that I don't even understand. I guess I am getting too old. I hear words such as 'yu si mi' or 'yu dun know'. There is now a new greeting word, 'yes dawg'. I beg oonu, no badder farmalize patois. Mek it tan same way and mek it evolve. Patois sweet fi talk especially among friends and when you are overseas among other Jamaicans.
This emerging language of the people is very colourful and might one day be accepted as part of patois. I don't think that the dogs will ever accept human beings being referred to as dawgs.
It is interesting to note how these children can reel off the badwod dem. I regard some as bad based on how they are used. Did you know that when men want to abuse someone verbally, they use words such as 'blood claat'. They tell other men how they come een like pussy. These words relate to women. Is this an indication of what we think of our women? It is interesting to note that women also use these words to abuse others verbally. Yu neva know women used to use blood cloth? Do we respect our mothers, our sisters, and our female spouses?
We teach our children that anything black is bad. There is black sheep, black book, blackmail, and blackout, and to top it off, we have di bad bruck black pickney dem! I wonder if that is the reason for youngsters bleaching their beautiful skin so that it can be whiter than snow.
I wrote all of this to say that the nastiness we hear on social media is coming from adults who were dragged up and not brought up. Words such as 'please', 'thank you', 'excuse me', 'my apologies,' and other similar words are no longer a part of our vocabulary. You go to an office, and rather than someone saying to you politely, 'Please have a seat, and we will deal with you shortly', the response could be, 'Yu haffi wait'. Well, Vernon no haffi wait...mi gone!
We have spent years trying to fix the economy and build the infrastructure of our country, but until we start to develop a new type of Jamaican, all of that will be in vain. If corrective action is not taken, then other nationals will move to Jamaica and make good use of this beautiful country, Jamaica.
Are you willing to be a change agent, or are you just following the crowd?
Time will tell!
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