Lest we mourn the gruesome headlines

Sep 06, 2011 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
“Jonathan James, 10, Dies From Dehydration After Dallas Parents Deprive Him Of Water For 5 Days,” occupies a prominent spot on the cover of the online newspaper, the Huffington Post. An image of a cherubic child by that name rests below the heading.
Jonathan James was only 10 years old when his biological father and stepmother locked him in an air conditioned room, and made him stand on an “X” as punishment for his “crime” of wetting his bed.
Jonathan died of dehydration. Public opinion is adamant Casey Anthony murdered her child, and the fate of some of our children were brutally determined by persons they trusted.
While child abuse is not always as cadaverous, it can sometimes be subtle (depending on our level of awareness), though no less destructive.
For those who have transited Parika during rush hour, children, by my estimation, no older than eleven linger around bars or restaurants, begging morsels of food or money to purchase same.
When asked the reason for begging, one of these children informed me that his mother sanctions it since his father abandoned them. It is noteworthy that that child was supplicating at about 14:00 hrs.
Within closer proximity of my house in Cotton Field on the Essequibo Coast are five children who almost daily loiter around bars, food establishments and a supermarket in the village. These five boys, possibly ranging from 4 to 10 years, are usually shirtless and unshod, and to my knowledge, do not attend school.
When they possess the energy, they would gallop along the busy streets, sometimes grabbing behind trucks, totally oblivious to speeding traffic on the Essequibo public road.
And when they do beg, it is usually for food to surfeit their hunger, since, according to them, “mommy didn’t cook”.
Rumours also abound that these children beg and return home with earnings for the parents to feed their own addictions.
For those knowledgeable of this particular situation, these boys all live with their parents, but sadly the destitution and questionable sobriety of those adults, leave these children vulnerable, unprotected, and neglected.
How the Child Welfare authorities in Anna Regina and even senior personnel of the regional administration seemingly miss these children and their plight is most appalling – the boys live and loiter in plain sight of these authorities.
A report was recently made to the Anna Regina Police Station about the need to warn these parents about the progressive delinquency of their sons – the children have begun interfering with people and business entities.
In my mind such anti-social outbursts will only increase for as long as these children go unnoticed and neglected. From a psychological standpoint, they are internalizing that they deserve to be treated as invisible, unprotected and worthless.
How will they ever know to assert their rights and human dignity with the conditioning that the world hates them?
How shall they ever empathize with others if all they learn is humiliation, neglect and intimidation? What about the health of their self-esteem and self- concept?
It is not uncommon to see these boys begging with their mother standing nearby. Like the boy in Parika, these children are “parentified”, meaning they are coerced by their parents to assume the responsibilities which are – chronologically and emotionally – incongruous in the first place.
Interestingly enough, many parents in our culture advocate mild to extreme forms of child labour under the pretext of industriousness.
In their formative years, these children are flayed by covert abuse. They are emotionally abandoned by parents, who themselves require social assistance beyond a cheque; they have been forced to band together for protection, especially when they venture out at nights to beg; they are gradually learning to accept rejection and public scorn as definitive of their character.
We should be mindful that those who are deprived of love, kindness and understanding, usually inflict their childhood torment on others. After all, how can any human being possibly demonstrate emotional sensitivity to another if such warmth was amputated from his psyche?
Do we need further evidence of this psychological decline considering the multitudes of cold-hearted narcissists who rule the world, and eerily enough, awe us?
While spankings, beatings, and sexual exploitation unleash mayhem on the psyche, humiliation, betrayal, incest and neglect also traumatize children.
Once we fully understand that trauma is not synonymous with insanity then we can deduce that these begging children in Cotton Field and throughout Guyana are already seriously traumatized and urgently require counselling.
Unfortunately though, we diminish the severity of the issue at these very stages, and bear the grief of terrifying consequences.
Jonathan James and Caylee Anthony were victims of a dynamic where the sources of their trust unravelled tragically. It is my hope that we can be custodians for the welfare and well-being of all children, lest we mourn the gruesome headlines.
Grieving and Concerned Essequibian

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