The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

ALMOST everyone, inclusive of yours truly, have an opinion as to how and why the traditional Bahamian society and culture are under assault, if not already destroyed.

There used to be a time, eons ago, when the family structure was paramount to societal stability and national development.

These, today, are traits which are not seen too often and where you do see them, participants are viewed as odd balls or worse.

Studies throughout the course of time have shown, time and time again, that where there is the family structure, legitimate or otherwise, that long-term or committed relationships, especially where children are involved, are ‘best’ for holding the nation together and producing productive citizens.

The support structure offered by such a traditional unit meant that the central government or the state did not have to get up in everyone’s personal business and development.

When our relatives got ‘old’ the family was there to care for them without becoming, as many of them are today, ‘wards’ of the state.

Our senior citizens’ facilities are filled to the brim with older relatives who have been ‘abandoned’ by their children and other relatives. The state has evolved to the extent where it is now ‘expected’ to take care of these people, at taxpayer’s expense.

Many of our children are being born out of wedlock and outside of what was once considered ‘the norm’.

In fact, statistics show that more than 65% of live births at our health centres are to ‘single’ parents, meaning females. In 85% of our households here in New Providence and over in Grand Bahama are headed by ‘single’ females with multiple children and the putative fathers are nowhere in sight. The children are reared without the benefit of focused; responsible and sensible male influence.

The question is: what are results of this? Our prisons are filled with mostly anti-socialized younger men. They go in for relatively minor offences but come back out with Doctorate Degrees and more in criminal behaviour and evolve into permanent menaces to society. Crime becomes an accepted way of life and even as a badge of honour, believe it or not.

Thousands of our younger people from ‘single’ parent homes have fallen through the cracks and we now witness, daily, the consequences. The destruction of the family, either by passage of time or by the ever expansion of bureaucratic structures has resulted in the state stepping in to take care of you all from the cradle straight to the grave.

Who pays for this and perceived entitlements such as: old age pension; medical care; subsidised housing; minimum wages; free education for mediocre students; social services and the list goes on and on, ad nauseam.

I am not suggesting that the traditional nuclear family is the panacea for the majority of our societal problems but its destruction has not helped in nation building or even individual achievements. It is a tragedy of epic proportions that no administration, so far, has seen fit to conceptualize and develop any real and sustainable initiatives, not a single one, to arrest this phenomenon.

This electoral term, basically, is at an end and the politicians must now go back or come back, whichever one is appropriate, to the people. The PLP will be badly mauled, politically and the FNM, led by a man ‘without a clue’ will be vanquished. The DNA that we see today will be seen no more.

Our collective focus, after the electoral dust would have settled, must be on the rebuilding of solid family structures and personal development. The so-called ‘church’ has been playing church for so long that it is time for it to come in from the cold. To God then, in all of these mundane things, be the glory.

ORTLAND H BODIE Jr

Nassau,

March 19, 2017.