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Parenting

My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, for initiating this debate and to the noble Baroness, Lady   Tonge, for the informative and valuable lessons I have learnt from listening to her. My contribution will centre almost exclusively on Caribbean British children, who have been the subject of much research in the UK. Despite this the community ends up with more children in prison than in university, more being excluded from school than any other group, achievement levels still at the bottom and parenting being blamed for that unfortunate set of circumstances. ““It takes a village to raise a child”” is an African proverb with utmost relevance to the situation in the UK today. Many of our children grow up in an atmosphere far removed from the Janet and John idyll of mum, dad and the 2.2 children. For many British Caribbean children growing up today it is a family vastly different even from the one that I recall. Then mum and dad had a support network of granny and grandad, aunts and uncles—most totally unrelated by blood—who watched out for, administered to, disciplined, fed, taught and loved in equal measure. Today it is quaintly labelled ““the extended family””, but it is something with which I grew up knowing only as family. Just as the wider community watched out for and over the children in their midst, children also understood their role and responsibility in the wider scheme of things. To sit while some adults stood, fail to greet an elder, or confront a teacher, priest or policeman was unthinkable. Any rebellions were swiftly brought into line. We grew in   the sure knowledge that with perseverance and application we could achieve anything. My grandmother always used to say, ““A mother is a mother to the world””. Somehow it seems that adults have lost the plot. Parenthood is not just giving birth but the teaching and training of a child, and it does not stop at our doors or with our own children. It is the job and duty of every adult to nurture and guide the next generation. The question that still puzzles me is of how this society sees children. Are they assets or a bother to society? Recently I was standing in a schoolroom with a head when the bell rang for break and the children poured out into the playground. In no time, the whole place was bubbling with life, with the children running around, playing games, yelling and chasing one another. As we looked on, the head said to me, ““We have real problems here. You see that group over there? They are the school’s worst nightmare””—““they”” being a group of black boys. The pity of that remark was that, unfortunately, the head saw only the dark side of the situation playing out before her. After some time of silence I felt inspired to answer her. I said, ““Those children should not be seen as problems but assets””. To me, they were real assets—treasures; indeed, gifts that were given freely to us to take care of. Those children are our future. I suggested that one of them might be a future Albert Einstein, Bill Gates or Marie Curie—a potential genius waiting to be discovered and be helped to blossom as individuals if we were to nurture them. She looked at me as though I were insane. Is it not often the case that we see in children only problems and difficulties confronting society, yet there can be no greater truism than the fact that children are the future of every human society? Whatever their colour, they are in reality assets and investment opportunities waiting for the adult society to grasp their potential and turn it into real estate for the future of all humanity. I believe that every child, once he or she is conceived, is a potential asset—a treasure; indeed, we could say a gift of God to humanity. The Indian sage Tagore said so eloquently:"““That with every child that is born the Creator is saying to humanity, I still have confidence in you””." That is the confidence that we are still capable of bringing to blossom every potential of a child—still capable of bringing to fulfilment every promise that each child holds for humanity. Do we truly understand that responsibility to nurture and develop children in a way which produces tomorrow’s citizen? I am sure that we all agree that those whom we expect to do so are those whom we label parents. What is our mental picture of parents—two adults, male and female joined in matrimony, whose role is to bring up children? Are we deluding ourselves? Is our world really like that? I suggest that the UK falls far short of that ideal. Look around you. There are different kinds of parents: birth parents; adoptive parents; single parents. The local authority is also a parent, and teachers are in loco parentis. Police officers used to be parents at one time, and youth workers are parents at some part of a child’s life. I could go on, but I think that noble Lords have got the idea. I shall end here, although I felt that I was going on for another day. The clock has beaten me.