Ronald Thwaites | Absent fathers and desperate recourse

Every expectant Jamaican and ‘Jamerican’ was hoping that Kamala Harris would have affirmed her Caribbean heritage in her acceptance speech last Wednesday. It had been presaged in all the interviews of family and friends in St Ann and the affective essay which her father had written some time ago.

But she didn’t. There was a mere mention that her father had come from Jamaica and fallen in love with her Indian mother – nothing more. She credited her values and upbringing to that mother, other relatives and friends – even a neighbour – but not to her father.

The overseas press picked up the omission. It turns out that there had been a divorce, a custody battle, which Mr Harris says prevented the active role he wanted to play. Kamala says she had invited both parents to her high school graduation, knowing that they would not speak to each other. Do we even fathom what a disability a broken and unloving family can be?

Bad stuff happens in many relationships. But in my experience, courthouse is the worst place to have to end up trying to decide how to share parenting. It is a tribute to Kamala that notwithstanding a family break-up, she has grown to be the compassionate ‘Mamala’ to her family and a strong servant to her community and nation.

Sadly, it is often otherwise. Which of us have not seen the babyfathers edging-up themselves at their child’s graduation – absent during the education process – now uncomfortably fighting back irrelevance, seeking recognition in the moment of success. Others don’t even bother to try. Then there are the bitter, hardened and overstressed mothers whose sadness no mascara can hide.

DYSTOPIAN SOCIAL ORDER

Many of the dysfunctional relationships between mother and son stem from the scars and scabs of her ‘relationship’ with their father. More men are trying to help than before but our dystopian social order has deep roots in fractured family life.

And it is likely to get worse, courtesy of job loss and bruk pocket caused by COVID-19 and the economics of inequality. How many of us are convinced that no country can “build back stronger” without solid philosophical and social foundations?

Since 1997, I have been trying to get governments at least to make into law the inclusion of a father’s name on every birth certificate. It still has not happened. Minister Tufton, the latest to whom the plea has been directed, has promised “soon come” many times but to no avail.

Very little substantial is going to improve until we are convinced that before any child is conceived, woman and man make a commitment, deeper than the vagaries of personal feelings, to relate courteously towards each other and constructively for the good of the child – no matter what. Having a child, then, is an unbreakable joint responsibility which the law and cultural mores must hold sacred.

The classic picture of nomination day was Crystal, Beenie and their youth – together. The bonding it portrays should be the norm.That is not our reality now. And we are pretending that it doesn’t matter when hardly anything else is more fundamental to happiness and national prosperity.

Another national delusion is that anything good can come from the issuance of another gambling licence in Jamaica. It is education, work, postponement of gratification and cooperation with others which will make our people ‘bruk out of brukness’. Not picking ‘lucky’ numbers, tossing dice or betting on straining animals.

GAMBLING EXPLOITATIVE

Gambling adds nothing to productivity and is inherently exploitative. For every winner there have to be multiple losers. The house always wins and they set their own margins while cruel and amoral governments take a heap of tax.

Pass by any of the betting shops and watch the recourse of the addicted and the desperate trying to turn a ‘bills’ into a dinner money and usually losing it all.

I am told that Jamaicans spent some $80 billion on gambling last year. Utter waste and character destruction. And now this Government wants us to be enticed to lose more so that a few can win, some oligarchs get richer, once again, at the poor man’s expense and the State collect extra tax. Really?

Compound this folly by the United States having to alert us of the danger to national security from contracts connected to the gambling expansion. How can any of this make sense in a society bereft of a sense of purpose; confusing personal freedom with licence to do anything; weakened by a sense of entitlement and easily conned by leaders, compromised by the lure of campaign and personal contributions and prone to rebaptise perfidy as prosperity?

Deluded and desperate!

Ronald Thwaites is member of parliament for Kingston Central. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.