The Tribune

By Malcolm Strachan

I SAT in church yesterday listening to my pastor talk about the importance of Bahamian fathers. I’m sure many of you did the same.

My pastor was not wrong. He talked of how men needed to step up not just for the benefit of their own sons and daughters but for the sake of society at large.

If I needed reminding of what is at stake in the matter, there was also an appeal this weekend for volunteers to join a scheme to become a prison visitor to talk to the young men behind bars about how they can change their lives.

Keeping people from that life is no easy task. There is often much made of how many of the young men in prison come from broken homes but I have known happy families driven to despair by the actions of one of their children who has gone off the rails and ended up on the wrong side of the law.

Good, churchgoing people who do everything right – according to how we are told. They care for the child. They send them to a good school. They help them with their homework. They given them every chance. And still sometimes it is thrown back in their faces as the young man – and it usually is boys – chooses a destructive path instead.

The hurt I have seen in those people is a constant one. Time moves on and they smile and do their best especially for any other children, but the hurt hangs heavy on them.

It is worth saying that because sometimes when we point to children of single parents and broken homes, it castigates those parents who are themselves trying their best.

I was listening in to a discussion not long ago on the subject where one church friend was opining on how important it was to have two parents in a family, while someone I knew who was a single mother listened in.

You might think this was where the discussion turned into an argument – but she agreed, not least of all for the financial reasons.

If you and your partner are happily together, you know how much the bills can add up to. Take away one of your salaries and try to think how you can cope with it.

As much as we hail and salute those settled relationships, we also ought to be making sure we help out as much as we can those who, for whatever reason, do not have a partner to support them.

Again, we can sometimes tend towards criticism of people simply for being single parents. I’ve seen people roll their eyes and use the phrase as if to explain that was the source of all of their problems.

Strangely enough, it is a criticism more often levelled at women than men. The all-too-often absent male partner is somehow absolved of this criticism. Or, worse, it is accepted that men can be absent while women pick up the pieces.

For some children, such home situations have been the same way for generations. Their mother is the daughter of a single mother who is a daughter of a single mother and so on. The children sometimes have no idea of what an alternative looks like.

It can mean they do not learn as they grow up what a healthy relationship looks like – they do not learn what it takes to be a husband, a father, a caring parent. They do not know what to mimic in their own childhood when they want to care for their own children. They start off with a blank slate, and have to learn as they go.

To some extent, we all have to do that. How many of us were truly ready for parenthood and all its surprises when the time came? But for those who have nothing to draw upon, it can mean for a self-fulfilling prophecy and a repeating cycle in relationships that fall apart.

Throw into the mix the way our society tolerates sweethearting.

Sweethearting is a very gentle-sounding way of saying cheating. It is a very polite way to describe being unfaithful. And yet we accept it, all while calling ourselves a Christian nation.

When I listened to my pastor in church, he talked about the importance of being there for your children. He talked in general terms. He didn’t differentiate between children born in wedlock and children born to sweethearts, though there are both for members of the congregation. Perhaps he should have been more forceful. After all, if we are talking about the sake of society at large, a reminder not to cheat on your wife might be very pertinent.

That is before we even talk about those children who are falling between the cracks, and who is there to catch them.

Father’s Day is important – if we choose to make it so. It is a celebration of those who are doing the right thing, and a reminder of what we still need to do.

But first of all, we do have to look at ourselves. At who we are. At what we do. At what we can do better.

We cannot castigate a single mother while absolving a cheating father. We cannot dismiss a broken family, rather we should reach out to try to help.

There are many who need that help. That help can be financial, certainly, but it can start by just being supportive. Sometimes that help might be protecting them from an abusive partner – we’re told at last that a government shelter will be bought this month, but why has it taken so long?

We must not let words just be words. If the guidance and protection of our children is so important, we must take tangible steps. Are we doing so? Are we doing enough? Those are questions we need to ask ourselves.