#BTEditorial – Are we raising ungrateful children?

The office of the President of Barbados is one from which citizens seldom hear a public intervention on the hot topic of the day. Like the previous office of the Governor General, intervention on national issues was a rarity.

President Dame Sandra Mason made an exception recently when she added her voice to widespread commentary on the recent Powda fete which was crashed by nearly 300 young men.

Unable or unwilling to pay to enter the entertainment event hosted as part of the annual national Crop Over Festival, the group of young people staged a coordinated invasion in the early morning hours after assembling on the hill above the event site at Vaucluse Raceway, St Thomas.

During her visit to another celebrated centenarian Dorothy Browne at Kew Road, Tudor Bridge, St Michael, President Mason offered her assessment of the situation.

As far as the President of this two-year-old republic is concerned, too many young Barbadians have become “entitled”. Moreover, their parents and grandparents have contributed to this situation by not spending enough time outlining to the younger generation about how hard they worked to achieve the gains from which their offspring now benefit.

“You see what happened at Powda; they feel they are entitled, and it’s because we, people in my age group and younger, make them feel that they are entitled, so they don’t know that they have to work . . . . They made them feel that they are entitled to everything that they get and that is not how life is,” the former Chief Magistrate and Appeals Court Judge emphasised.

But how did we get here? That is a critical question. We are certain that most parents, grandparents and great-grandparents never intended to create young children who have the misguided belief that whatever they request must be granted.

Most middle-class Barbadians will admit that they are one or possibly two generations away from poverty. One or two generations from pit toilets and outdoor showers.

The critical access to tertiary level education and opportunities to borrow from financial institutions have created a pathway for them to experience a lifestyle their parents did not envisage.

These new middle and upper-class segments of our society have made it their mission to ensure their children have as easy a life as they can, and they must not lack for anything.

This includes the private schools, a car to drive at age 16, private coaching for every sporting interest they may have, even if it is only fleeting. This is the lifestyle to which many of our young people are accustomed.

The words sacrifice, hard work, commitment to task, and delayed gratification are not in their vocabulary. It is about instant pleasure and enjoyment.

We have harshly condemned the Powda party crashers who were emboldened by their success at invading a similar event at the same venue. They went unpunished and so there was no reason to stop.

At this stage, we find it incredulous that not a single person has faced the courts for their action despite the number of people involved in the incident which left a stall owner’s business up in smoke, an operator suffering burns on the hands, an off-duty officer undergoing surgery for stab wounds, and organisers forced to end the event prematurely.

The visit by President Mason, however, assuaged some of our despair about the future when we learned that the newest centenarian has bucked the trend, ensuring her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren appreciate the sacrifices made for them.

“You are lucky that you have a great-grandmother who showed you the way and I know you don’t feel [entitled].

“We don’t have too many great-grandmothers that they listen to anyway because the grandmothers don’t make them stay to listen; the mothers don’t make them stay and listen and, therefore, they don’t know what they should be doing and how they should be grateful,” Dame Sandra told relatives of Dorothy Browne. ]]>