by Sidney Sweeting, DDS About twenty years ago one of our local radio hosts was the speaker at the Rotary Club of East Nassau. His talk was about single parent families and he was convinced, even then, that it was time that the subject be addressed by Government, in the schools, churches and every other available forum. He said that as a young man he had always thought that girls having children out of wedlock could blamed on a lack of education but he later realized that girls were returning from college and they also had children out of wedlock.
I logged on Google to get some statistics for the Bahamas and found an article by Larry Smith in Bahama Pundit published in 2005. The title of his article was Bahamian Education Reform and the statistics that he gave were more frightening than I could have imagined and I quote:
"Over half of all births in the Bahamas are out of wedlock. More than two thirds of young Bahamians are from single parent homes, and in most of these cases the single parent is a teenage woman.....there are many Bahamian children who were born simply as a means of prying money from the pockets of disappearing boyfriends or as a mistake due to ignorance.or as a demonstration of fertility."
No one can blame our country's failing grade in education solely on the single parent issue but it is certainly a contributing factor in addition to the societal problems that it creates.
So, twenty years ago the single parent issue was discussed at our Rotary club and two years ago Larry Smith wrote about it and the politicians just continue with their heads in the sand.
I would urge every Bahamian to read this article by Larry Smith in Bahama Pundit (December, 2005) and I believe that if every elected politician - Government, Opposition and apppointed Senators would make these two subjects a bipartisan issue this country could make a giant step forward in solving our crisis in education. Another end result would be a demonstration of the maturity of our elected officials.
