Grace Kennedy Foundation 1993 Lecture
Grace Kennedy Foundation 1993 Lecture
Elsa Leo-Rhynie
Professor of Woman and Development Studies, UWI
Yet, on the other hand, much of the persistent failure to realize the
obvious potential in our societies can be traced as much to human
and attitudinal factors as to material and other resource
deficiencies.
She arrived at that post via the route of high school teacher,
Lecturer in the UWI Department of Education and Executive
Director of the prestigious Institute of Management & Production
(IMP). Most importantly, Dr. Leo-Rhynie is a happily married
mother of three.
Although the nuclear family remains the social and religious ideal
for all social classes in Jamaica, it exists mainly in the upper and
middle classes of the society as a whole, and in all classes of some
ethnic groups such as the Chinese and East Indian. Among the
lower classes, both legal and non-legal sexual unions are
established. The latter are often very informal. In some cases, the
male partner does not share a residence with the female partner.
These categories not only describe the union states but also, as
Roberts and Sinclair point out, represent the three stages of the
mating pattern evident among many families in Jamaica. The first
ten years of the family cycle (women up to twenty-five years of
age) are characterized by visiting unions, then there is a gradual
transition to common-law and/or legal union so that by the age of
forty-five most women are involved in either common-law or
marital unions.
Over the past 150 years, the legal marriage rate in Jamaica has
increased somewhat, but Roberts and Sinclair comment on the
stability in family patterns and forms since Emancipation despite
the many economic, political and social changes, which have
transformed the Jamaican society. This lack of change and the
persistence of varying family patterns have been of great interest to
anthropologists and researchers for many years. The unique
features of family organizations, which have been explored,
include:
While women accept the absence of their male partners from the
household, they build strong supportive networks with their close
relatives, neighbours and friends. The household in which the
family lives may be quite large and the kinship network very often
extends beyond the household. It can extend beyond the
community and even beyond the country, so that the family
includes members who are widely separated but who share
emotional and psychological ties and who, according to need, can
either seek or offer financial and other support in times of crisis.
The kinship network, which provides emotional as well as
financial support is very important for the woman who has a child
but little or no support from the male partner. Such a woman faces
what Olive Senior describes in Working Miracles [1992] as a
'manless, jobless and sometimes hopeless' predicament, which
compels her to seek employment. In the absence of formal child-
care facilities, she depends on a member of her network - her
mother, aunt, grandmother, older sibling, friend, and neighbour - to
carry out the caring/nurturing role while she assumes the role of
provider. She may become a domestic helper, in which case she is
often paid to perform the caring/ nurturing function for the children
of the middle or upper-class family which employs her, while at
the same time delegating the care of her own children to others.
Many women have become involved in home-based income -
generating activities, for example, craftwork, growing food for
market, dressmaking, crochet, which allow them to combine their
providing and nurturing roles.
The father's presence in the home is, however, often transient, his
financial and other support erratic. The children usually develop
their sense of trust and security through interaction with the mother
and depend on her, almost exclusively, to satisfy their needs.
Fernando Henriques commented on the psychological dependence
of Jamaicans on their mothers, and attributed this to their complete
reliance, as children, on the mother and the deprivation of a father's
care. Although, in many instances, the father chooses to be absent,
very often the mothers themselves exclude fathers from more
intense involvement in the lives of their children, guarding
jealously this area of responsibility which they view as uniquely
theirs. Today, however, among younger family groups, fathers are
increasingly observed taking their children to school, to the
hospital, and participating in their care and nurture. This
involvement may well be linked to the fact that their female
partners, who have greater economic options and who are aware of
the increasing educational and occupational opportunities open to
them, have become more assertive in establishing a true
partnership, in terms of child care and nurture, with their spouses.
Mothers are held in high esteem, and this may well be linked to
African revivalism in which respect for the matriarch is paramount
and the sacredness of motherhood, pregnancy and the power of
fertility are important features. Many men and women regard their
mothers so highly that they admit to caring more for their mothers
than for their mates or spouses.
Visiting unions are the least stable of the three types of family
pattern but they are the ones in which young mothers often find
themselves. These unions do not always progress to a level of
stability and, as a result, the young woman may go through a series
of visiting relationships, resulting in a number of children. The
informality of the conjugal structure discourages the use of
contraceptives, and women have children for successive mates in
an attempt to cement the relationship and secure financial support.
This creates its own problems as many men are unwilling to accept
responsibility for other men's children, and so they resist
establishing a common-law or formal marital union.
The absent father creates the absent mother who becomes the
breadwinner, often resorting to low-paying jobs requiring her to
work long, hard hours and forcing her to leave her children in
vulnerable situations where they may be inadequately cared for.
The woman has to seek mental, emotional and physical support
from sources other than the children's father - her support sources
assist her to cope with childbearing, rearing and associated
experiences. The importance of spouse support in areas other than
financial is vital and is very often not sufficiently emphasized, but
as Olive Senior observes:
The family provides the child's first school and caregivers the first
teachers. The learning process for children begins long before the
acquisition of language. In the very early years, children build tip,
from experiences gained through interaction with people, objects,
animals, places and events, basic concepts, which form the
foundation for later learning. Play, for young children, is self-
initiated learning, children's research activity, through which their
muscles are developed by exercise and their minds, their
imaginations, enriched by varying experiences. Children gradually
learn to express themselves using language, copying the language
of the parent or caregiver. That pattern thus becomes the basis of
the child's expressive language.
Since 1965, the nature of the migrants has changed. The United
States Immigration Act favours the granting of residence to better-
educated and more skilled persons, and preference is also given to
the reunification of families. What this has meant is that Jamaica is
losing its educated and skilled personnel, the individuals most
likely to be able to establish and support stable family life.
Anderson [1988] reports that between 1976 and 1985,
professionals and managers have accounted for 9.7% of all
Jamaican migrants to the USA and Canada; craft persons and
operators account for an additional 12%. In the health sector, 78%
of the doctors and 95% of the nurses trained during the 1975 to
1985 period have migrated. Those who migrate do so during their
most productive working years - between twenty and forty - and
they leave behind the very young and the very old, often in
extremely vulnerable situations. Reports of thirteen -year-old girls
living on their own or with elderly relatives who have no real
authority over their activities, and of the children of families left
with the responsibility for their care and nurture in the hands of the
eldest sibling who is between thirteen and sixteen years old, reveal
the extent to which our youths are at risk. This neglect of children
is one of the major contributors to illegal adolescent drug use; and
to the increasing reported involvement of young women, and men,
in prostitution and pornography.
The home is the first learning environment, but the school, the
church and the wider society provide formal and informal
educational opportunities for the intellectual, physical, spiritual,
social and emotional development of the young. Education is
concerned with all these aspects of development, not merely the
intellectual, although it is this area which determines the form of
the curriculum, the teaching methods used and the methods of
assessment employed.
The education individuals receive and their levels of attainment
have far-reaching implications for their ability to make informed
choices, decisions about themselves, their families, their
occupational and social roles. The school serves as an extension of
the home in terms of its socializing function - assisting children
with the very difficult and complex tasks of academic competence,
self-reliance in all areas of life, moral development, acquisition of
social skills, motivation and personality formation. Article 29 of
the United Nations Rights of the Child Convention - to which
Jamaica is a signatory - addresses the aims and content of
education and stresses the development of the child's potential to
the fullest, the preparation of the child for active and responsible
citizenship and the development of respect for cultural and national
values.
All these qualities are vital, not only for employment but also for
personal and social maturity. Those who have not acquired them
suffer from low self-esteem and poor ethical standards. They are
easy prey for those who need unquestioning assistance in illegal
and immoral activities.
In the past, parent and teacher often agreed about those behaviours
which were acceptable and those, which were not. Recently,
however, parents have challenged teachers for 'wrongfully'
punishing their children. Such disputes reflect differences between
home and school-values and have consequences for the child's
socialization. Guidance counselors who can play a vital role in
assisting students in all aspects of their development are not
available in all secondary level schools, and are not assigned to
primary schools at all.
Adolescent Parenting
In rural areas, however, she noted that there was still the feeling
among young women that they must 'have out their lot'. They were
responsive to the wishes of their male partners not to use
contraceptives and expressed a fear of side effects associated with
methods of birth control.
Until recently, there has been very little reporting of, and almost no
public outcry against, domestic violence, probably because there is
a widespread view that the woman is the property of the man. The
increased reporting may be due to the fact that there has been a
marked increase in this activity, but also, many women have found
the courage to speak out about such abuse. Violence is a way of
asserting power and control in relationships and it is expressed in
different ways. Many women live with psychological and
emotional abuse, with constant criticism, which undermines their
confidence and keeps them in a submissive, subservient role. This
psychological control, which extends to the children, also
reinforces the male's authority and dominance and is often
accompanied by controlled verbal abuse, and minor physical
abuse. Women who live with such situations enforce the abuser's
belief that he has the right to behave in this way. The children learn
these patterns of interaction and these methods of inflicting mental
cruelty. Other women and children suffer from physical violence,
beatings and rape - outside and within unions. Children are also
sexually abused. Increasingly, instances of fathers involved in
incestuous relationships with their daughters, sons and stepchildren
are being reported.
Food and shelter for the body, ganja for the brain: these are
the only goals of our children of the street. Survival being the
only wisdom means they steal, grab, and fight for what they
want. There is no inner desire for nobility, no search for
spiritual qualities. Just physical existence and physical
pleasure and the response to the variety of goods that don't
last. For this, the children of the streets will kill.
[Daily Gleaner, 30.3.1989.]
The changes that are desired and the strategies, which need to be
developed for dealing with this crisis, must address both the public
and private spheres of life. These strategies must be based on
fundamental, time-honoured values, which have been identified
and agreed upon - certain crucial values, such as respect for self
and others, which constitute the framework for human
relationships. There must be consistency in terms of working to
achieve these and there must be the motivation of parents, teachers,
the young who are most at risk and, indeed, the entire society, to
ensure that these values are understood and embraced by all.
The compensatory role which teachers can play when parents fall
short is clearly identified here as a quality which impressed this
student, and it is one that teachers should be prepared to assume
whenever the need is indicated.
Service clubs and past students' associations can also assist in this
regard by implementing mentoring programmes. In such a
programme, an adult develops a helping, advising relationship with
an adolescent whose family may not have the resources to bring
about change internally.
Deere, C.D., Antrobus, P., Bolles, L., Melendes, E., Phillips, P.,
Rivera, M., Safa, H. (1990) In the Shadows of the Sun: Caribbean
Development Alternatives and U.S. Policy. A PACCA Book,
Westview Press: Boulder.
King, Ruby and Morissey, Mike (1988) Images in Print- Bias and
Prejudice in Caribbean Textbooks. Institute of Social and
Economic Research, UW1, Mona.
Wint Eleanor, (1992) 'Urban Bus System Hazards '. The Daily
Gleaner, Wednesday, November 18.