The good old days
What baffles me is that the same people condemning this generation are the same people that RAISED this generation. Ask yourselves, where did you fall short when raising us? What did you not do right when rearing us and "bringing us up in the way we should go"? The older generations complain about the younger generations but aren't you the ones who raised us, taught us, trained us? What could you and should you have done better?
The way I see it, if you all had done such a fine job as older people raising younger people then we wouldn't have turned out so bad. Not all of us are bad, just like not all of the older people are good.
Stop chatting to hear yourselves because it would seem to me that you all are intrigued by the sounds of your own voices rather than realizing that hindsight is 20/20 vision, and maybe you older folks as a collective bunch aren't so perfect and didn't do such a great job after all. Too late to correct that now, huh! Now it's left to us same young people to clean up ALL your mistakes and failures across the board, beginning with the Government and the community at large and identifying your shortcomings to ensure we don't make the same errors when raising our own kids, starting with sweeping their badness under the rug, which is what you all are good for doing.
But as usual nothing changes in Cayman. All you do is sit and chat among yourselves, saying bad things about this one and that one while forgetting that the majority of you are so virtuous and forthright as it would appear that you older folks were seemingly raised in a culture of sweeping your misdeeds under the rug and never again mentioning the family sins in order to keep up appearances so the person down the street couldn't have anything negative to say.
Tell me how many child molesters, pedophiles and don't forget murderers were roaming around in you all's generation? Didn't a guy stab up and chop up his own cousin (killing him) and stab the unfaithful girlfriend (nearly killing her) at a house in town "donkey years ago"? What about the guy that was chopped up in West Bay and left in the bush "donkey years ago"? Oh, because it was "donkey years ago" then that means its ok for you all to forget, I reckon.
You can't say, can you, because it was all swept under the mat and never spoken of again? Let's not mention the "cousin make dozen" relationships that were common knowledge to all and whispered about in hushed tones.
Stop acting like we young people are so horrid when many of the acts committed by your generation are just as bad, or so bad that they were unmentionable. I guess what the old people say is true — back in the day there was less street light and more bush, so you all could get away with virtually anything.
Category: Viewpoint
I am a teacher. You pay me to educate your children.
I think i am no better or worse than anyone else, young or old. Caymanian or expat.
I am not political, just try to be observant. And do my job.
I am not a preacher. But I am a christian and if that makes you stop wanting to read the please do so.
I do want to express my observation and opinion on it, so if you think you are not open to this message FOR ANY REASON then
PLEASE DO NOT READ FURTHER AS I DO NOT WISH TO OFFEND YOU ! ! !
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Each day I am around kids who are just trying to make sense of THEIR LIFE,FAMILY,RELATIONSHIPS,FEELINGS,RESPONSIBILITIES.
IN OTHER WORDS, ALL that is around them.
AND REALLY STRUGGLING……
They cannot do this on their own. They need guides.
But teachers are not able to do this on their own as they are only with us part of the day and so much of their days are with all the others who have a strong influence.
Anyone with a loving and caring heart can be a good guide
hopefully you are one yourself .
If not, Take up the challenge and take an interest in your youth.
Be a kind of BIG SISTER OR BIG BROTHER OR PARENT OR GRANDPARENT.
If you don't then they will be lost.
Love your children. Help them to understand that kindness is important and that happiness and positivity will only come if they are able to put aside hate, jealousy and fear.
Many of Your children are crying out to be loved. I see it every day. In what they say and how they act and what they do.
So i try to teach respect and tolerance and kindness and give them confidence and understanding and build their self- esteem.
But I cannot love your child when what they want is to love you.
Hug your child,talk to your child, reassure your child. Even if you do not feel it is easy.
Please don't worry about the material things you can give them.
Give of yourself, your time, energy and commitment to guide them in this changing world.
And, if you feel so inclined, Seek help if you need it, there is NO SHAME IN NOT KNOWING
how to start………after all, there were never any classes in parenting…….
only in not having the COURAGE to do it.
Have faith in your own ability, and yes, you too will make mistakes, WE ALL DO.
But the teachers job is to encourage you…………..just keep trying.
ONE DAY YOU WILL BE OLD AND FRAIL AND IT WILL BE THE CHILDREN DECIDING ON YOUR FATE….you had better have taught them kindness and your value to them……………………………………………………….CHILDREN TRULY ARE YOUR FUTURE…….
Right on brother.
Young caymanian I concur with your sentiments and would add the following points. As cayman was emerging in the 80s and 90s parents were out making money to pay for the big homes, the fancy cars, nice clothes and so on. When the market crashed and people who lost their jobs had to hold two jobs to make end meets. Then the government decided to hike the price on things so the parent then had to hold another job. Guess who suffers? The children! A vicious cycle isn't it?
I was sitting in traffic this morning and I was thinking what a waste of time it is to sit here to get to work. If government would implement flexi time with the schools or with companies imagine I could spend that extra hour and half with my children each day.
For generations we have continued to do business as in the past. Unless we make some changes our children are going to be in the hands of gangs and will get themselves into trouble. The older generation had it correct whereby a village usedto raise their children. Now a days we have so many expats with criminal backgrounds you just don't know who to trust so we are left at the beckon of the nannies to raise our children.
we need the tamarind trees to make whips, we need to punish our children for their wrong doings and allow parents to discipline their children, then I can say we might raise good children.
The "good old days" were really never that good.
This is true in all cultures around the world.
You refer to a couple of bad apples from "Donkey years ago". Every society has them, Cayman's no diffrent. I'm a middle age Caymanian (50), have two daughters who live wholesome lives and behave themselves save for the typical teenage partying which is normal for the age group. My children don't run around with guns, machettes, robbing people, shooting them in the face, and certainly don't involve themselves with gangs which promotes crime! These tit for tat killings when they begin go on almost every other night until they kill each other off, it's a dominoe effect. This certainly didn't happen in our generation in Cayman! And most of the convicted murders and accused murders are in their early 20's. I blame the younger generation, not mine or even yours that you seem to be referring to, but the generation before mine, the 35-40 year old's that have 18-23 year old children, had children too young due to unsafe sex practices, and were obviosuly too young to raise their children properly, and this can posibly be attributed to the slightly older generation not teaching these children properly so they couldn't teach thier's either, I can't dispute that. Bottom line is much of our society is not well educated! Therefore social indifferences occur. Additionally these younger people involve themselves with the "wrong" crowd and so it goes on…..In my day we went to school, came home and climbed trees and ate mangoes and ginnups, fished, we didn't go out looking to rob people or kill! Parents, you got to raise your children better!!!! Don't be ignorant. You know what? I'm wasting my time-bye!
You know when I was young rich people gave their children brown paper bags for lunch or had a meal in a plastic container and you bought a drink at school. This was in the private schools. My brother went to the public school where a lot of kids bought lunch from Mr. Ornon Whittakers lunch wagon with his wife and other operators who sold lunch that way. When children did anything wrong you were scolded so that you knew you did something wrong in private school. When you did something wrong in public school and got scolded the child would tell his mother and she would march down to school and tell the english teacher they didn't know her child. He was better then anybody in school even tho he was failing in class. But that was because she didn't like him because he wasn't english? The crap got so thick and so high you couldn't say anything that would help the child. They tried to make them part of the group and to learn anything but because his mama said if that teacher even cuts his eye at you "I will deal with him". So even if he had no father at home No man teacher could try to help these kind of kids. So the cycle contines.
What to do ? Join the military if you want to change really change and be someone who would be useful to yourself and society. They will teach you discipline and respect and responsibility so that you can change for the better.
Things have changed for the better in Cayman you have a lot of opportunities, you just can't see them because of your past. Step away into the future for the betterment of you and your future .
Well said Caymanian. Well said.
Well said young Caymanian.
"You all's generation" – yeuch.
Well said and properly put.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose………….
What you wrote is possibly true in your situation. I will not fight with you over that. However I will say this, everybody was not raised according to your musings. Some of us were raised different and cannot relate to your insight. Having said that, that is no reason for the youths misbehaving today. Some of us from the older generations tried to help but because of their know it all attitudes some have turned to a life of crime. Stop the blame game and if you or someone you know is going down the wrong road there is no reason why a change cannot be made. I also know that some of you were raised properly but got side-tracked. I have seem somewell raised kids bring their parents and grand parents to shame. Sometimes only you can help you.
The good old days were hard work so there was no time for idle hands (although they had their share). I was raised by parents of the olden days and I made something worthwhile of myself and I raised my children in the modified version of what I was raised and they made something of theirselves. But having said thatI see parents of my generation having other people raise their children and in some instnaces children raising themselves and thats the problem. No one to instil morals and values in children. When a child is dragged up instead of brought up there lies the problem.
Exactement.