The Tribune

IT is easy to blame societal issues on women — mothers in particular. It is easy to blame them on “broken” homes. It is easy to blame them on less commitment to Christianity. The latter two tend to go back to women — seen as responsible for keeping the family and the “home,” regardless of its state and affect on her, together, and responsible for forcing Christianity and relevant obligations like weekly church attendance on the household.

Women have carried the burden of the family and home life while men have been free of blame when the family and/or home life fall apart or fail to function as society deems fit. There is frequent evidence of this in the predictable response to violent crime by men and boys and violence against girls. “Where was the mother?” The mother is somehow expected to work in order to financially contribute to the household, if not pay the bills completely on her own, and be a constant supervisor of her children, monitoring all of their activities in realtime.

Parental responsibility is not to be shirked, we all agree, but some seem to believe the mother is the parent and the father is a “figure". He is sometimes like a mythical creature, coming and going without prediction. He is sometimes villain, coming only to raise hell when something has gone wrong. He is sometimes an empty body, physically there, but not truly present. He is sometimes non-existent, having been gone long enough to cease to exist. When he is a parent, the father is highly revered, more celebrated than any mother doing it all on her own. When functioning in the role of a parent, the father is exceptional and the mother is ordinary, because while it is the rule for women to do the work of parenting, a father parenting is an exception.

It is often stressed that two-parent households function better and have better outcomes, as measured by the perceived health and success of the children. This, however, is an oversimplification and a convenient narrative for those who push marriage, monogamy, gender stereotypes by any means and to any effect necessary.

The truth is that children benefit from multiple people teaching, guiding, and caring for them, beyond their basic physiological needs. There is often a primary parent/guardian, whether or not parents/guardians live together. In The Bahamas, like many countries, that is usually a woman.

There was a time that white women did not work outside of the home and were relegated to “homemaking” and reproductive labour — the work that made (and still makes) it possible for men to work while producing more labourers. It is important to note that the situation for black women was quite different, having always engaged in productive labour while responsible for reproductive labour. White women — the women who were both recognised as human beings and deemed inferior to men, thus relegated to second class citizenship —were to take care of the household and the children.

Today, women work outside of the home because we have to, whether or not we enjoy it or have particular career aspirations. For the average Bahamian household, one income is not enough. Minimum wage does not even come close to enabling a person to live in a one-bedroom apartment, much less support a family. The shift to women engaging in formal employment was not accompanied by a shift to shared responsibility in the home or family life.

People continue to expect and support the idea that women are responsible —entirely or primarily —for domestic and care work and men need not or ought not engage in it at all. This is an obvious inequality that many of us live and witness every day. It is intertwined with the fantasy that the ultimate family structure is a mother, father, and children living in the same house, independent of other family units. This has never been the reality of Bahamian families which function, regardless of living arrangements.

While many grew up in homes with both parents, until and unless there was separation or divorce, it would be, at the very least, reductive to suggest that the typical Bahamian family is a nuclear family, or that this has proven to work.

The Bahamas has a tourism-dependent economy which means its people are tourism-dependent. Most people who are not employed by the government are front desk clerks, servers, cooks, room attendants, casino workers, and the like. These are not nine-to-five jobs. These are not jobs that allow parents to take their children to school at 8am, pick them up at 3pm, help them with their homework, make dinner by 6pm, have the family eat together, tuck children in by 9pm, and have time together before going to sleep themselves.

Work life in The Bahamas, for most, requires parents to work opposite shift and have little or no time together or, as most do, depend on other family members for help. This worked much better a few decades ago when grandparents were retired when or soon after their grandchildren came along. Now, grandparents are still working, unable to retire due to the cost of living. They cannot be full time babysitters.

Aunts and uncles step in. Older cousins step in. People spend their days off, vacation days, university breaks, and other time off to help their family members with childcare. In some cases, where family members are not available, neighbours are asked to keep an eye on the house and/or peep in on the children. In many cases, older siblings are parentified, made responsible for collection from school, homework assistance, making snacks, and sometimes preparing a quick and easy dinner.

Some of them even have morning duty, waking their younger siblings, getting them ready for school, hustling to the bus stop, and ensuring they all get to school. Two parents cannot do it alone. The nuclear family model is oversold and, in the end, ineffective in reaching the goal of properly raising and caring for children who grow into healthy adults. The salvation by way of a two-parent home is a myth wherever the parents are not wealthy.

We have built a country on shift work, and shift work is incompatible with parenting. Households with children need more people. This is one of the main reasons many people hire or consider hiring live-in nannies or housekeepers. This is an issue all on its own, with people — largely migrant workers — being underpaid in addition to being hired under one title while being required to perform the tasks of two. A housekeeper is not a nanny and a nanny is not a housekeeper. Many households find themselves in need of both, and too little money to make the hires. This leads to the exploitation of domestic workers and the parentification of children.

For the health and wellbeing of children, families, communities, and the country, we have to change the narrative. We have to revise the models we have set out. People have to be encouraged to create the households and families that work for them. That may mean more than two generations living in one household. That may mean multiple family units within one family purchasing and living on one multi-family property. That may mean a return to more intimate relationships among neighbours. That may mean delaying or choosing not to have children. That may mean more communal living. That may mean extended families to include the people we choose. That may mean entirely different family structures.

The “village” people reference has gone away. The people in the village do not always show themselves to be interested in helping to raise children. They show up to complain. To lambaste. To criticize. The village is often changing, as people move from one apartment to the next, not really having a chance to get to know the people around them.

The conditions we live within are not conducive to the lives to which we have been taught to aspire. Rather than an image, like the nuclear family, we need to reach for a new reality that is healthy, educated, respectful and respected children who grow to live in harmony with one another.

Neoliberalism will not get us there. Burdening women with domestic and care work will not get us there. We need support for parents. We need support for children. We need new ways to build and be families. We need to refuse to allow the government to withdraw from its obligations to ensure the social wellbeing of the country, and refuse to allow it to continue along the path of tourism to the detriment, if not exclusion, of all else. There must be investment in systems and services to support the healthy development of young people and, by extension, the country.

Recommendations

1. Assembly by Natasha Brown. Written by a black British women of Jamaican descent, Assembly is a short book that manages to have two plots. The obvious one is the party the narrator is preparing to attend and the other is the layers of her identity and how they may appear or be invoked at this party and by the people in attendance. Race, class, and gender come to the fore as she considers herself and the space she inhabits. As a reviewer on Goodreads put it, “Central to the story is the myth of meritocracy and how hard work and achievement is subjective in a world where generational wealth and social status press their fingers on the scales while accusing everyone else of foul play.”

2. See a play at the PAB Black Box Theatre.. Ringplay Season starts on March 7 with “Them” by Winston Saunders and “A Merry Regiment of Women” by Rae Shirley. There are few things as entertaining and thought-provoking as Bahamian theatre. Email admin@ringplay.org for more information on the upcoming plays. If you would like to write a play yourself, register for the in-person or virtual Writing for Theatre workshop with Dr. Nicolette Bethel at Poinciana Paper Press this weekend. Visit poincianapaperpress.com for more information.

3. Visit a Family Island. Now is a good time to start planning a Family Island trip to be taken during the summer months when the rates for accommodations are typically lower as it is the slow season. Take your time to look into the options, and identify those that are Bahamian-owned. Find out which hotels participate in the Two Fly Free programme and see how much easier your trip can be on your wallet. Go to an island you have never visited, or revisit one that has likely changed since you were last there. Go to the farmers market, eat at the fish fry, visit the national park. Go to the beach and see the treasure that awaits. Look up at the starry night sky, and wake up early enough to catch at least one sunrise. Do it with people you love.