A synopsis
The young children in our society are crying for attention and proper upbringing. The parents and the community are ignoring them! They go to school – the teachers have so many on their hands, they are unable to meet them one-on-one, yet we want to cut their salaries.
They go home – and the parents don’t want to listen to them, but shun them away to watch the television or do homework, or just relieve themselves from not having to be responsible. They don’t want to devote quality time – too busy or stressed out by societal demands. Fathers are out with their girlfriend at the bars and clubs. Mothers are caught up in their own make-up and world. So caught up with their jobs, they have forgotten what being a mother is!
So as a result of not minding the little things of life, these youngsters find their families elsewhere. Not being able to make it in society and achieve those grades necessary to find societal meaning in life, these very youngsters find meaning and purpose in the cunning hands of the drug leaders on this Island. These serpents have made the young feel important about themselves by filling their heads with a mixture of truth, honey, and lies. The “leaders” bring them into a family, they go out to clubs, learn to sell – well done, and go to parties. “You talk like a real Caymanian, you act like a real Caymanian, this is being a real Caymanian,” they say. On top of that, they identify themselves with a name, like “Wolf Pack.” When parents are sleeping, the youngsters play in the night, boys meet girls, and at a young age they become sexually active. Then they are initiated into a family on “wheels.” You can’t see the faces, who is with who, because the cars are tinted. “Not my daughter,” the ignorant parent would say. “Not my son!” These parents actually believe that there sons and daughters have perfect genes and thus would never do stupid things.
Then these youngsters, given the feel of big money, have to do something brazen against the law to be initiated – like rob a store, or just cut someone up behind Cox Lumber, or kill a man or shoot a woman. They have to be a ruffian to be accepted. So they must dress a certain way, listen to the same music, and talk a certain way.Meanwhile, the leaders at the top, indoctrinate these youngsters, and paint a negative image of our society. Police are branded as "Babylon." The god of money and drugs is the goal of life. The leaders on the street, using the young Caymanians as carriers and to do their dirty work, know very little about the top leaders who are pulling the strings, hidden in the financial industry.
Why these shootings? This is my opinion, but you might disagree. It started when someone or some group interfered with another group’s drug market. Some group has crossed another’s territory or has interfered with another’s goods. New groups have formed and started their own thing, interfering with former groups. This whole fiasco has to do with drugs in the hands of young leaders who are now creating conflict in the field. These young people (many who could still be attending school) are given guns along with drugs that are brought here on canoes at night or through our borders with some inside help.
It is a sad and serious situation for the Cayman Islands! We are now seeing the fruit of our negligence – not paying attention to the little things of life, but so preoccupied with our own minds, affairs and relationships. This is so sad, and it is inevitable that such crimes should arise. What can we do to fight it when certain in high positions are involved in this drug business? A small community like ours is growing larger every year with more and more displace young people who can be used. The guardians of society have allowed drugs, money, music, and sex, to sweep the young people of their feet to lead them astray.
No legislation has ever ERADICATED drugs and never will! It is only Rehab, Right Education, and God that can help us, and forever change human nature from destruction!
Peace
Category: Viewpoint
CNS… could you please put this article on the forefront again. The message is important, seeing the rise of crime is coming from such juveniles.
Please post this article again!
Thanks
CNS: You can always click on the email button and send it to all the people you know. That’s a good way to get it circulating.
You know what the problem is? The whole community! Guess what, some parents are BAD parents, some are good and some are doing the best they can yet their children will choose to live right or not. Yes upbringing matters but honestly we live in a community of crabs in a bucket. We criticize and cut down one another and when one Caymanian is doing well for themselves then guaranteed there will b a crap load of others tearing that one person down.
I agree that if you are a parent then be as good of a parent as you can be. Don’t party all the time or come home to your kids drunk or ignore them or let them stay out as long as they want. Ppl think that parenting is pushin one out and leaving it to it’s own devices. If you think you big enough to have a kid then be big enough to take care of it and love it.
SAD!
The root cause of crime in the Cayman Islands, are parents and those in leadership roles, who are too occupied and busy to deal with the affairs of the Now. Why I say this? They are so caught up that –
If the cycle of abuse is not broken, it will continue and in fact, prosper with each passing generation. If you read the 2006 Report on Criminality or any other previous report, its the same thing. There is not a short term fix for this one.
In my opinion the most significant factor in the development of children is the presence of a father in the family unit. I have observed over the years that regardless of how strong a mother is in a family, the difference between families with and without fathers, especially with young boys and young men is staggering.
I bet if you did some further research, you would find that the very same parents the writer describes are in fact, only a generation away from their own disfunctional upbringing that seems to have desensitize their investment in parenting. Many, many Caymanian males in the age range from 40-50 were part of a crucial generation that bridged the gap between the non-developed and developed Cayman Islands. This age group experienced Cayman in a time where things were not quite flourishing; where young boys went to sea at a very young age and never finished school. Some other Caymanian males from this generation did not leave the Island but were a product of these dysfunctional families whereby a mother might have had several children from several different men or woman that had multiple children that were raised by different members of the community.
There was always a sense of scorn for unmarried women who ended up having children with multiple partners. Many of these women were perhaps poor to begin with, had very little education and saw an opportunity to elevate her position by having a child for a man who was better off than her. In some cases, this recipe worked, but for others, it did not and therefore a woman might try time and time again to find another man and have children with in order to do better. The problem then arose when the father’s of some of these children were already married and therefore their offspring were deemed "outside".
Then you women who had children that they were not able to take care of and there were many unofficial adoptions. Some families that were better off, whether a blood relative or not, would often times take to raising children of underpriviledged women.
in either case, the stigma that these children grew up with varied from a successful experience whereby the child ended up being better off and was provided with an education and experienced a far better quality of life than if he had remained with his birth mother. Some fathers of "outside" children honoured their financial responsibilities to the child, but was not physically present or otherwise in the child’s life.
On the other hand, there were a number of children who grew up with a very poor sense of self, who went through life as a "outside" child, that did not grown or form bonds with siblings of different fathers children. Unofficially adopted children often times grew up knowing that their parent lived someplace else on the Island but believed they were unwanted and unworthy; some were abused and mistreated as the servant of the household. .
Many of these same people are today’s parents of the gangsta thugs. Either one of both of the parents have probably been in prison or has had run in with the court system. Chances are there are abuse issues with alcohol, drugs and domestic violence-if not one, all.
You cannot change or reprogram the past, but it does become a cycle and if the cycle is not broken, if there is not some form of break in this pattern, chances are it will continue and as times change, so will the behaviour. Violent acts that used to be undertaken with say a machete was replaced in today’s situation by violence committed with semi automatic weapons.
The long term path includes healing and enpowerment through education for the lostand hurt souls that are the parents of today’s gangstas. Only time will tell if the investment we make today will be a beginning to breaking the chains that bind people in their mindsets surrounging the taboos of abuse and its long term effects on behaviour, self esteem, self worth and providing a basis for individuals to be truly invested in themselves, their families and in turn communities.
We are paying and will continue to pay the price for keeping many of the darker side of our cultural history swept under the carpet. This past is not unique to just Cayman, throughout every culture, there are hidden histories of poverty, neglect and abuse. What we don’t learn from the entire scope of our history, the goodness, success stories and yes, that which is ugly and scary, forever marks our existence and binds us in repetition.
Until that time, lets continue to pray for wisdom, knowledge and understanding.
"If the cycle of abuse is not broken, it will continue and in fact, prosper with each passing generation. If you read the 2006 Report on Criminality or any other previous report, its the same thing. There is not a short term fix for this one."
This is so true. Actually, everything you said is true. This "stigma" has destroyed their self-esteems and is producing these girls that think nothing of themselves and they accept that the men are this way. That’s Cayman men they say or sometimes all men. I try to tell them that it’s not normal but they don’t know anything else. "Boys will be boys" is the excuse. I am working so hard to combat that with my family against me and how i raise my children. Did you know that "making a boy wash dishes will turn him gay?" Neither did I. My boys are definitely not gay but I think theyshould be able to cook, clean, wash dishes, make beds, rake the yard, pull bush, etc.
Girls too…
The problem with our children today, is that the parents give them too much gadgets to play with – games, television, radios, dvd players, you name it! They are not interacting with family and their environment. They are just caught up with mind-games. Caymanian boys and girls stay in the house like a prince or princess, nieve to the dangerous world around them. They are not cultured. Cayman loses its culture when they don’t pass it on to their children and allow Holiwood (movies) to fill their heads with crap!
stop pointing fingers at the teachers, police and everyone but yourselves…
b responsible parents, …… for the " first school is in the home "
Sad but true! I just posted on another page about the big responsibility on parents during these times to take an active interest in their children’s lives in order to be able to avoid some of these issues in the first place.
PEACE indeed!
Or the story could go as follows……….
Children are being brought up with no sense of responsibility, hard work, determination and independence. They are not being ignored, they are being loved to death in the wrong way!
From a young age, they do not learn that there areconsequences to their actions. Parents spoil them and do everything for them, so the children never learn how to do for themselves.
Parent go to school to curse the teacher who has put their child in detention! They take what their children tell them as the truth and often do not bother to investigate both sides of the story.
Soon those children see the lifestyle others (perhaps who have worked hard for it) are living and they want to live the same way. Problem is they don’t know how to get there as everything has always been dropped in their laps. So they get it the only way they know how – instilling fear in others and showing attitude.
There could be a lesson tought when the small crimes are beginning to happen, but still, the family and district sticks together, makes excuses and does not hold the individual responsible.
Years later, when the crimes have become of more serious nature, the parents, family along with the entire district and society are wondering what has happened.
The End
They aren’t being loved if they aren’t raising them properly. They are giving them everything they want instead of everything they need which is emotional attention not material things. Gig is saying the same thing only differently.
Before I got my butt whooped I was always told it’s because I was loved. Not sure how true that was but I respected them for the way they raised me because they also set a good example.
We really need to seat down and comptemplate this as parents. It makes no sense to give our children all the latest toys and spoil them. We need to be firm with love and guide them properly. Set a good example for them.
There are too much fatherless children. Men step up to the plate and girls you deserve better than these kind of men. If they have children all over the place, don’t date them. Do you think that all the women they dated was a problem? No, the problem is them. They won’t change.
Legalisation of all drugs would kill the drug guns overnight by taking away the massive profits CAUSED by the fact they are illegal. Of course it makes the most sense to legalise and regulate ( and tax) drugs as we have done with alcohol, the Economist has been advocating this approach for years. But alas it will never happen and so the "war on drugs" will cost a fortune, get nowhere and do more harm than good to society.
The young children in our society are crying for attention and proper upbringing. The parents and the community are ignoring them! They go to school – the teachers have so many on their hands, they are unable to meet them one-on-one, yet we want to cut their salaries.
I don’t know if you have ever been to school, but hardly anywhere are they met one-on-one. It all has to do with their upbringing. Thats it. Some parents here need to do their job better. Thats all.
I think a little one on one is necessary or are the children teaching themselves? If my child is having problems understanding something and he can’t get the teacher’s attention then he will fail in school.
A low ratio of children to teachers is very important. That’s what a lot of people look for in a school.
As for spoiled children, money is often used out of guilt for not having enough time to spend with the children. I am not condoning this or giving an excuse just telling it from normal observations.
75% of a teacher’s attention and time, in a government school, is taken up by the "derelicts"… the ones who have no structure or consequences at home, whose parents couldn’t care less what their little terrorist does at school… the ones to suffer are the few average and bright children, who actually attend school to learn something. those are the facts.