The Youth Deserve Better
They deserve your support, care and love, not your pity and chump change.
Last October, I wrote about the rights children have and how it is our responsibility to ensure that globally children deserve to live in peace, a globe that they can breathe in, and a community that cares for them. Since then, I feel that there have been a series of events on the global and local stage that continue to prove that society does not care about its young people. In this piece, I write about how as a Sint Maarten community we continue to neglect our children and how that translates into anger, anxiety, and distaste for our country.
Neglect as a nation.
When we think about child neglect, the picture that is painted is usually a child in a horrible living situation that usually leaves them malnourished, sick, and abused. However, our neglect of our children is greater than what happens in the household and is translated within our communities and even our government policies. The dictionary definition says that neglect is to give little attention or respect to or to leave undone or unattended to, especially through carelessness. With those definitions, it is easy to point out that as a society we don't give attention, and respect and leave our young people unattended.
There isn't any space. There isn't a space where children can speak their grievances, able to exert their energy, able to figure out themselves. As a society, we put children in these boxes and expect them to navigate life in the way we want them to, not in the day that works for them. This brings a level of frustration to children who feel that they are not being heard or understood and usually translates into disruptive behaviors that we publicly ridicule and condemn. It also affects their academic and social aspirations. Because of this neglect from these socialization groups (family, school, and community), many children tend to look for their safe space in places that aren't safe for them. Here is where predators thrive, banking on the vulnerability and insecurities of the youth, promising what they miss by using and abusing them. Unfortunately, we still live in a society where if it is found out that a child is being groomed and assaulted by an adult (especially if it is a girl) we are quick to label them as "fast" or "force ripe." These labels are then repeated to them by their peers, thus making the spaces they occupy even more unsafe. Do we see the cycle here?
While our communities need to provide these spaces for our children, it is also on the government to ensure that their policies help reflect a society that can care for the children, from schools being severely underfunded, and compulsory education without the proper provisions to ensure that every child is not only in school but able to eat and get the necessary materials to be able to thrive in school, to the lack of urgency and response to the abusers that plague our society. With how most of our schools are subsidized and are ran by individual school boards it is easy for the government to say those issues are for the school boards to handle. That couldn't be any more incorrect. It is a government-wide responsibility to ensure that the proper factors from health and labor to economic and job opportunities, our environment, and how we view justice to ensure the safety of our children.
Let us say none of these things can change (they can) and now we must take a reactive approach to these issues. It is disheartening to see that a lot of adults' responses to children's behavioral issues are corporal punishment. Corporal punishment is defined as physical force used and intended to cause pain or discomfort. Adults insist that this type of punishment will iron out the behaviors of our youth and the reason we have the issues in the first place is that children aren't getting hit anymore and community members aren't allowed to correct other children.
Let's take a brief pause.
Fear and violence are colonial imports that we have unfortunately clung to that ensure that our children stay in line. The same tactics that massa used on the plantation are what we want to use on the children that we claim to love and support. There is no love in fear and violence, no matter how you try to spin it. Countless studies, especially those in the Caribbean have proven that corporal punishment does more harm than good. Anwar et al state students undergoing corporal punishment to mend their behavior will be behaving badly in the future. Caribbean scholars have found that while educators are conflicted on how they feel about corporal punishment and its effectiveness, it is still something that they use as a form of punishment at high rates.
It all boils down to this. In a society where capitalism is the driver to ensure that the status quo is prevalent, our children must feel the brunt of it and not be able to develop and have to deal with violence to curb their retaliation. The situation with how universities has been clamping down on their students who are establishing encampments pushing for them to divest from investing in companies who are contributing to the genocide of Palestinians is a great example. We see it every day in our communities that we push the hustle and grind culture and leave the care behind. Community care and support is radical. It is liberating.
False hopes lead to disdain.
Switching gears a little, this section is more of me yelling about my grievances. As someone who spent my entire life in youth organizations looking for different ways to make a change or allow the youth in organizations to experience and learn about new things, I've met my share of false hopes from the public. However, as someone who is now working with younger young people, seeing them face the same false promises that I experienced ten years ago is infuriating. These are the children we like to parade as model citizens and the future of the country, but we refuse to invest in their growth, listen to their grievances and solutions or even properly acknowledge their existence. So many "yeah man I going to support" fell empty as it crashed on concrete. And those that finally decide oh yes, proceeds to give such a measly support that it is laughable. Everyday respect is loss and for those that didn't have any from me, it extends the list on why it didn't exist in the first place.
People think this is something that the children would wave off. News flash, they will remember everything you do say or do not say to them. This will influence their distaste for their community, lack of faith and even lack of pride for their country. I can list every politician, businessperson and community member that has directly lied in my face, and it impacts how I navigate the world today. With a generation that is angrier, more anxious, and more exhausted than ever, your false hopes are adding fuel to the fire.
Our children deserve better. They deserve your guidance, care, support, and community. They deserve to be children, experience the world, and form their opinions of their surroundings. It is unfortunate that during the times where our young people need the care the most, we are concerned about how to punish and control. Everyone is an expert on punishment but never wants to address the matter because it means they must do self reflection and hold themselves accountable.
Either be there for the children or don’t talk on them.