Some of this nation’s youth – through no fault of their own – are fated to be failed by any number of this nation’s social institutions inclusive of both Church and State.
Most of us seem to have forgotten that there was once a time when our people [fathers, mothers and other extended family] did care about the well-being of their off-spring.

Alas! This was not to last.

To this very day, there yet remains a hardy few of oldsters among us who can remember the arrival of that time when Bahamians fell in love with a brand new kind of ethos – one that trained its eye on ego-run amok: – of all my mother’s children, I love ME the most and thus the fervent idolatry of ME and MINE.

As a direct consequence of this new worship, we now have on our collective hands some of the results that inevitably follow when greed, selfishness and rampant consumerism are allowed free rein. As some among us gloat about their good fortune; some others pig out.

Sadly, thousands upon thousands of others are obliged to beg for a crust of bread, a taste of sugar and a vulgar bed wherever the day leaves them.
Some of this nation’s children are schooled and educated in comfort while others are left to fend for themselves in places where gun-fire can blast out its bloody report in a moment and in a twinkling of an eye.

Our children deserve better. Sadly, they may be in for worse piled upon even more of the same. Information reaching us speaks a story of horror, neglect and indecisiveness as regards the current state of affairs in any number of public schools which are bulging to the point of bursting their banks with students.

Today we have schools where classrooms are chock-full of students – many of them at the primary level – where only so many can ever really benefit; and so the beat continues for hundreds upon untold hundreds of this nation’s youth.

This is no basis upon which we can ever even hope to build a thriving Bahamian Nation; and clearly, the times are hard and they may get even harder.
Scarier than this is this sad fact of life: – This nation’s children deserve far better than they are presently getting from their parents, their pastors and their parents’ representatives in parliament. Indeed, one of the signs of the times in today’s Bahamas has to do with the extent to which any number of undocumented women – especially Haitians – now make it their business to produce as many children as they possibly can.

Evidently, they do what they do because they have come to the conclusion that things are truly better in the Bahamas for them – and that – these things are going to be quite fine for their brood.

Interestingly, there is today every indication that some of the Haitian women who are – as the saying goes – ‘dropping-baby’ – are utterly dependent on their male counterparts. As interesting is the fact that some of these men have left family members behind in a Haiti where things are still verging on bad tending towards worse; this notwithstanding reconstruction work taking place in Port-au-Prince and its immediate environs.

In direct counterpoint to this Haitian story of baby-making gone rampant, we have a situation on our collective hands where far too many of this nation’s men routinely abuse drugs that can and do destroy mind, body and soul.

As the Minister of National Security recently commented, “…There is a segment of our society where the widespread use and abuse of mind altering illicit drugs, alcohol and other substances… is prevalent. We often see the consequential bloodshed and death as gang members destroy themselves and others in seeking to maintain and/or establish turf in a war between and among our people…”

Nottage goes on to note the obvious when he indicates, “…The focal point to building a safer Bahamas must be a commitment to national renovation and renewal and that the security of the country is a vital pillar on which to build a thriving nation…”

These resounding words must yet be translated into action on the ground. As night follows day, so does it follows that today’s brutalized thug was once some cooing mother’s bundle of joy.

The same principle applies to the girl-child who – at the age between twelve and fifteen – is laden with child; and thus a rape-victim.

She too was once some one’s precious princess of a child. This is all so very sad.

We can and should do better.