Failing our children

The grandmother, who is 52 years old, filed a complaint in Court two weeks ago. The complaint was "uncontrollable behaviour." Her 13-year-old granddaughter, she claimed, shoplifted, came home late, and gave trouble at school. The girl’s mother lives abroad, and the father visits her on weekends.

Many people think that such incidents reflect a breakdown in the family, but this is not so. Indeed, the expansion of the middle-class in the society has meant that the nuclear family is, in fact, more prevalent now than it was 50 years ago. But, amongst working-class people, the matrifocal and extended-family structures have remained unchanged for decades. The difference is that, in a smaller and less modern society, such a family structure was adequate for providing children’s needs. In the extended family, children of different ages socialise together, and their babysitters are usually the teenagers. This ensures that the younger children are socialised by the older ones in play, while the teenagers acquire some experience in taking care of children. This is important because, although teenage pregnancy is now seen as a social problem, most persons in simpler times began having families in their late teens. Back then, this was not a problem because, with the society having fewer educational requirements, many people also began working as teenagers.

But a modern society has different demands. The average young person needs at least five years of schooling if they are to get a job above that of unskilled labourer. And anything more than the simplest clerical work requires additional schooling — another two or three years learning a trade or vocation. And most persons who wish to pursue a university degree do not even consider starting a family until that course is complete, which is why middle-class people generally do not start their families until they are in the late 20s or, increasingly, early 30s.

But consider the grandmother who has taken her granddaughter to court. If the child is 13 years old and the grandmother is 52, then it means that the mother is in her late 20s or mid-30s. That in turn means that the grandmother herself had her own daughter at a young age. And so a cycle is created, with one of the grandmother’s complaints being that the granddaughter is involved in a relationship with a boy. Perhaps the grandmother does not want to see her granddaughter making the same mistakes she, and her own daughter, did.

The 13-year-old has now been sent by the court to the St Jude’s Home for Girls. But the very fact that the heavy hand of the law is being used to deal with a young person who, in all likelihood, has emotional needs which are not being met reflects a failure, not of the family per se, but of our formal institutions — especially the schools. After all, it is in schools, not the extended family, where children now get much of their socialisation. But, since schools are divided into discrete age groups, socialisation for adulthood is a much shallower process. If, however, schools have measures to help children acquire knowledge about social demands, and if such knowledge is presented in a way that appeals to the child, then many of our so-called delinquents would muddle through.

It seems, however, that this girl has no such support systems at home or in school. No doubt the same is true of those young men who comprise the killer class plaguing the country. And, unless the society starts catering to the needs of such young people, we shall continue to experience the dire consequences of failing them.