Hermione Parris, 108, urges parents: “Take Your Children to Church”

In an impassioned plea, Hermione Eileen Parris, possibly the oldest living Barbadian at age 108, has urged parents to instil religious values in their children as a remedy for rising youth violence. 

Speaking to Barbados TODAY on Monday, a day after her birthday celebration, Parris, of Moore’s Land, St John, expressed deep concern over the moral decline among young people, particularly young men.

Parris told the nation’s parents that children needed to learn about the importance of morals and have respect for their fellow human beings.

She said: “When I was growing up, I spent a lot of time with my grandmother in St Philip and we had to go to Sunday School. We had to recite a bible verse and we would be in the house of God. And if it so be that you got to go to night service, we had to go along and learn the word of God,” she said. “But today,  we asking the children if them want to go to Sunday School and if they say ‘no’, they stand home. If you take God’s word out of the children, what are you going to expect? This is what happening with the young mothers today. They dress and go long to church and leave the children home to do what they want to do. When it happens like this, anything can happen. Then you will cry or have to get a lawyer, sometimes without having money to pay he. So parents have to help the children and lead them right. These days are far different to the days that gone by.”

Parris also said parents needed to be more involved in their children’s lives and find out about the company they kept.

Parris, the eldest member of her community, mothered many children there and in neighbouring Pool Land, where she lived previously.

She and her husband Richard Parris, who died in 2007 at the age of 92, had seven children, three of whom are now deceased.

She has too many grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren to recall, she added.

She celebrated the milestone on Sunday with many neighbours, relatives and friends, and a special service was held at her house by the Tichbourne Apostolic Faith Church.

Parris does not have any ailments or non-communicable diseases and she moves around her home at will.

She has a sharp memory, enjoys a hearty laugh and likes to watch the news.

Parris said it was God that allowed her to live another year and she was grateful to be in her condition. 

sheriabrathwaite@barbadostoday.bb