Staff writer - Latoya Wakefield
Nothing hurts more than seeing people getting mistreated, especially our children. Why does society have such disregard towards them?
I’m tired of seeing children can’t go home after school because the taxi men are so gluttonous that they take the adults home first. I’m frustrated at hearing about children getting abused, going missing, neglected, killed or hurt in any way.
Not too long ago, I saw the 8 pm news. I just got inspiration for a love poem from Beyonce’s ‘Smash into you’ and then the news came on. I didn’t even remember what I was so anxious to write a couple minutes before when I saw the appalling news.
I was shocked, angry and sad when I heard that they died in a fire. According to Jamaicaobserver.com, the father of deceased, 9-year-old Rod Brown and 10-year-old Matadio Brown, Courtney was attacked by gunmen along the roadway where he was shot. Some minutes later, unknown assailants set fire to Courtney’s house, which put out the lives of young Rod and Matadio. The father succumbed to his wounds in the hospital.
Why would anyone harm the children? Even if the parent(s) was (were) involved in some sort of ‘mix up’. Violence in any country is disheartening especially when children are involved. No one can ever convince me that war makes any sense. I seriously believe that the gun should have never been invented. Life would have less heartache if people fisted it out.
Elders normally say in their days ‘a village raised a child’. Nowadays their mothers leaving them in the rubbish. A lady in her 60’s told me once that it was difficult for her to be rude or disobedient in her youth as any adult in her community wouldn’t spare the ‘rod’ if she did.
In those days, adults wouldn’t leave children on the road at nights when taxis are rare even if they were beat from work. In those days, people looked out for the children. Those days weren’t that long ago, what happened?
Innocent and hurt!
I know we still had our problems then but somehow I think society when it came to morals, values and caring about the welfare of others were much better then than it is now or ever will be. While we progress, while we move towards upward mobility, while we’re working towards becoming a first world country, the level of humanity and selflessness lessens. As we evolved with the world, we leave behind all the important things behind.
We need to stand up in what we believe in. We need to stand firm for our children. We need to be there for them. Yes, we’re not perfect yet united we can do anything, overcome any obstacle. We might continue to fumble every now and then but as a nation we can do it. Let’s takeJamaicawhere it should be while maintaining who we are. If we don’t protect the children, how can we have a future? R.I.P Rod and Matadio…
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