My column – When fathers condemn their sons to criminality

Jun 22, 2008 Features / Columnists, My Column

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For a long time we in Guyana had known that single-parent households were on the increase and that these households were headed by women. I had already noticed the trend where men seemed to be moving away from mainstream activities and were rapidly being replaced by women.

I had cause to point to women being the educators, the office administrators and even the carpenters and masons. The first time I saw a woman with a shovel and fork and wading in the trenches in the city cleaning the drains I was somewhat disturbed because I had grown accustomed to seeing men undertaking the cleaning of the city. They formed the bulk of the city labour force.

It was less surprising when I saw women taxi drivers and minibus drivers. The men had simply given up these jobs. The bulk of the prison officers are women as is the case with the various security guard services.

On Wednesday I met a most remarkable woman outside the Georgetown Public Hospital. She had gone there to identify her dead nephew. Initially I thought that she was the boy’s mother and I accused her of allowing her son to go astray. She stared at me then burst into tears.

The interview that followed was most revealing and disturbing. Joy, the aunt, said that she was mother and father to Robin Chung, when the child was very young and his father, Andrew Chung, had left for Antigua. At that time the mother was pregnant with a third child. The mother later left to join the father.

Joy, a Christian in her own words, had the boy going to Sunday school and doing all the things that a boy in a decent home would do. He shared his early years between the aunt and the grandmother.

She said that when the mother returned she took control of her son as any mother is wont to do. The absence of the father was not immediately felt because mothers are enterprising and they do the best for their children.

Something went wrong because by the time the boy was a teenager he began looking for a father figure. Andrew Chung never looked back and to this day he remains in Antigua.

When Joy asked, rhetorically, “What happened to National Service?” I understood the importance of that institution in the lives of many young men.

I was closely associated with that organization and I know many young men who entered that institution and left with life skills. Some are overseas making money because of national service.

Many became self-employed people and quite a few became lecturers who imparted their skills to other young people.

In my young days there was no national service but families were much more stable. Many had grandparents living with them and when the father disappeared the child had a grandfather, or an uncle and many others to keep him in line.

I was one such and my uncles, whom I love to death, never allowed me to get away with much. They kept me on a tight leash to the point that when I happened to be swimming in a canal and spotted them, I would jump out of the canal, grab my clothes and sprint home, hoping that they never spotted me.

The decline in discipline in schools could be traced directly to the absence of the male teacher. School heads are almost all women. In my day there were men who did not hesitate to bench errant boys.

Every young boy idolizes an adult male and the one who exerts the greatest control is often the one who helps to mould the mind of the young boy. This boy grows up wanting to be like that male.

Joy then made the observation that whenever a father is missing the young boy is at a severe disadvantage. “Fathers never realize the effect their absence has on young boys.”

Just this past week, I saw on television, a story about 17 young women who decided to become pregnant in what is now seen as a pact. One of them went with a 24-year-old homeless man and became impregnated. The fact is that none of these girls were older than 16 and they were all at school. For them the baby was a status symbol and they did not take into consideration the responsibility of bringing up a child.

It is no different in Guyana. Many young women on attaining a certain age want to become a mother and many have gone with a man whom they tolerated but whom they knew they would never marry.

One of my daughters decided that she wanted her baby after she had reached 28 and had shown no inclination to get married. She got her son who is now nine.

However, I was there and the boy was never allowed to slip. There were times when the mother would call on me because the little boy took her for a joke. But in how many homes these days do we find such a thing?

The mother of the little boy who appeared in court charged with the Lusignan murders also said that her son did not grow up with a father. When I asked her about him she said that he “was a junkie somewhere on the streets.”

The story was the same in the case of Otis Fiffee who grew up without a father. Sex is one of the greatest physiological needs and is strongest among young people. The act is so gratifying that some people have been known to go chasing after it. Some use prostitutes and some prey on the very young. Some rape.

Those who indulge in sex for fun often end up in tears. I have seen young girls cry when they discovered that they are pregnant and feared the wrath of their parents; I have seen men beat women to get an abortion because they did not want the child; I have seen men walk away from women who become pregnant.

My mother used to say, “What is sweet in your mouth would be bitter in your behind.” The sex is good but the consequences can be difficult and it is for this reason that I always advise people to behave responsibly.

I fathered five children and I was here for all of them. They are all grown and I felt good, real good when one of my sons said to me, “You will never have the father that I have.”
Another son said to me, “Pops. I love you to death.”

My daughters are not far off. They shower me with all manner of things and all this I see as a reward for being a father.

When I was Editor in Chief at the Guyana National Newspapers Limited way back then, a woman wrote a letter to the newspaper seeking the father of her son. In that letter she said that the man who studied at Tuskegee was unaware that she had got pregnant because she left the university.

Her son was 18 when she wrote the letter and she said that he was graduating from college and that he wanted to have his father there. The woman acknowledged that the man may have had a wife but for her son who seemed desperate, she wanted to find him. I do not know if she ever did.

It is therefore strange that men do not recognize their importance in the lives of their children and the beasts among us have no problem with the mothers going to the court to force them to pay for their child’s support.

I now shudder to think that as the men increasingly shy away from their children we could end up with more young criminals. A survey of the prisons would be a good exercise. It would surely tell us that most of those incarcerated grew up without fathers.

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