Benign Neglect

I’ve been doing some guided introspection recently and I’ve come to the conclusion that difficult situations at home (in our childhood) lead to difficulties in adulthood. This is hardly new, but I think that in a nation awash in crime and some of it terribly violent, perhaps that simple truism is one we need to take out and inspect and see how we might be able to make a change for the next generation.

Picture this: A man and woman get together and have children. Everything is honky dory until it isn’t anymore and the man (or woman) walks out. He remains in the country but makes no attempt to see his children or to support them in any way. The woman on the other hand, is still ‘on the hook’ so to speak. Unfortunately, she now has full fiscal and emotional responsibility for the children and must make it all work. What mechanisms are there in the legal system in Trinidad & Tobago to make her life a little easier? I’m asking this now because of an article I read just yesterday in which a young man (John) indicated that his father (an addict and generally unfocussed fella) left his family of 5 when the children were all quite young. John went on to point out that that abandonment had not only the inevitable consequences for the children in terms of the loss of the father figure, but also had the consequence of creating an environment of ‘benign neglect’ on the part of their mother. I thought to myself, “Interesting”.

If we consider the circumstances we realize that really, benign neglect is probably the low end of what’s likely to happen. When a family originally created by two, must be supported by one that is a big deal. It’s a huge responsibility. Think about it. The remaining parent is responsible for every bill, every meal, every school meeting, every pick up and every drop off, every everything. In a small country like Trinidad or Tobago, maybe Granny or Papa can pitch in, but that doesn’t lessen the burden of worry. The pressure is still always on this one person. Think of it this way, when sick people lie in bed in the same position every day, the pressure causes the development of bedsores. What I think we’re seeing now in Trinidad & Tobago is the ‘bedsores’ that family pressure has created.

So that brings me to the laws of T&T and child support. I would venture to guess (and I assure you I have no empirical evidence to support the following claim but it seems to make sense to me) that many of the young people out there making bassa bassa and generally causing commess in the place, are the children of fractured families where one person had to do the job of two and obviously didn’t do a perfect job. While I don’t completely exonerate the remaining parent, I can’t blame him/her alone if the children get into difficulty. Frankly, I blame a society that hasn’t yet figured out that if we could take a wee bit of pressure off the single parent household, we might eventually lower the crime rate, raise the high school graduation rates and lower the rates of homelessness and hopelessness.

Parents who spend their entire lives angry or antsy or anxious about one thing after the other after the other, are not the best parents. How can they be? What emotional resources do they have left with which to parent after they've battled their way through the day? It seems very simple and straightforward to me that the more relaxed a mother is about her bills being paid, the more relaxed she is period and the more of a chance she and her children have of having a healthy home life. How does this have an impact on the crime statistics? I would guess that children raised in homes where ‘benign neglect’ is not a factor, are on a shorter leash. The chances of them getting into wrong company or just getting in trouble, are lower. That’s what we should be working towards. There must be someone at UWI who has the research to support (or refute) my hypothesis. Is there any correlation between socio-economic status and criminal behavior? Seems obvious to me but me ent no Sociologist, never mind what the degree paper says. Perhaps empirical proof may be just the fillip needed to get laws on the books to make absent parents contribute financially to their children’s ongoing care. Unfortunately, there are no laws that can be enacted to compel parents to parent. We have to leave that to conscience.

As a nation we would also do well to establish and fund the kinds of social safety nets that can lift the least of us, since by doing so we will have lifted all of us. It’s all well and good to talk about crime and talk about praying for things to change, but I think it would serve us all better though to start “thinking outside the box”. Indeed, we may want to toss the proverbial box away entirely and look for solutions that are well outside the norm, solutions that will not necessarily bring results tomorrow or next week.

At the end of the day what I’m saying simply is that child support should be required for non-custodial parents, and that support should be efficiently supported by government social services for those in need. The mathematics is simple: child support makes the children’s lives better, not perfect, just a bit better. Support means that the little things: three new ribbons, a nice Christmas present, an extra snack in the lunch kit, heck, the lunch kit, can be bought without something else having to go undone or unpaid. It’s only fair and reasonable and certainly, it’s preferable to doing nothing and letting the chirren run wild, benignly neglected by their mothers and malignantly neglected by the social system in which they grow up.

A thought for your consideration on this Father's Day.