Wednesday 13 July 2011

GROWING UP IN DANGER


Adolescents reach a point at which they need to be independent of their parents. But at that point, they need their parents more than ever. They need accommodation, food, pocket money, clothes, study books and school fees.

A wise parent will give freedom to the adolescent child. But the parent hopes that the values and attitudes given to the child over the years will keep the child on a straight path.

A wise young person will know the straight path the parent requires and know that he has to follow that path out of respect for the support of parents yet to come.

Young people should not let foreign advisors tell them they are free from parents. They will suffer with no parents to help them. So many young people in PNG become free from their parents and then die.

They should not have been fighting and drunk. They should not have been drinking homebrew. They should not have given trouble to the police.

They should not have burned the school down. Now my son will be expelled from school and go to gaol. He has killed his future even before he started.

Those who are in their graves will never have the chance to become mature adults. And this young man drank a half bottle of homebrew and is blind. He will never be a teacher now.

He will sit in his village fed by his parents and led by brothers or sisters to wash in the river each afternoon. He will never marry. Who will marry a blind man?

He was blinded as a stupid kid to show he was tough. He would not believe the talk at school about the dangers of methanol.

I should not have let my daughter go to a disco. She caught a taxi home and was raped by the driver and his wantoks. Now my 16 year old daughter is pregnant and has HIV infection. She did not believe that taxi drivers would do such a thing.

Parents are experts in danger. They have worried about their children all their married lives. Loving parents work to keep their children safe until they are mature to look after themselves.

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