Your House First, The Nation Next

By Ganjiki D Wayne


We often talk of the family being the most basic unit in society, and that we need to protect it in order to protect our society. How do we do that? But before we protect, I think we first need to restore it.

How do we even begin to restore the family unit when almost every home in our society (especially the urban but increasingly in rural areas) seems broken and/or dysfunctional? Spouses cheating on each other, abusing each other, parents abusing their children. Children growing up in single-parent families lack proper guidance from a father or love from a mother. We see people deserting their families and their responsibilities everywhere we turn. Go to any family court and watch aggrieved mothers trying to seek justice for their children; children whose father’s most substantial contribution to their existence was a cell from his body. Young women, falling pregnant before getting married find themselves at loss because the men have no intention of sticking around (but they had no problems with sticking it in). Or a young man finds himself with a baby the mother of whom, having no intention of raising the baby, dumps it with him and his parents. Actually I think in many cases the parents are not more emotionally mature than the babies they make!

Kids these days are unrestrained, having had no discipline and guidance from their parents. They get their idea of morality and ethics (or lack of) and about the world from the countless movies they watch, the songs they listen to, their peers and for many, on the streets, not forgetting the internet...I doubt they read books at all. Walk down the street any morning or afternoon and watch most school children unashamedly letting out obscenities at each other...one can only conclude that it is everyday language for them at home. Watch the constant in-fighting and inter-school fighting. Watch them smoke and chew and head to school looking scruffy...having little or no sense of decency. At school they disrespect their teachers. A cousin of mine who went for teacher training at a public school in NCD, spoke of how the students would walk in and out of the classroom without any respect whatsoever for her. At 8:30am many high school students are still at the markets chewing or smoking time away. (Interestingly school only lasts till 1:00pm these days and they’re back out again). Informal sector mothers publicly abuse their children at their markets for being disobedient. But you wonder where the kid picks up that disobedience since the mother defies authorities by sitting in an undesignated selling spot. Fathers introduce their babies to the sweet aroma of cigarettes and/or alcohol; yet at some point they would probably tell their children that smoking and drinking is bad for them. Cheating parents cannot expect their children to be honest to them about anything. The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.

What shall we make of our society and its future if this is the way the family is disintegrating? If these are the types of “future leaders” we are breeding? I hear Community Development Secretary Joseph Klapat calling for government measures to protect children and the family unit. “Hear hear!” I say. (But I’m wondering how his department would protect the family by decriminalising prostitution. Seems diabolical. But that’s just me.)

My appeal is not to the government. It’s to YOU....How’s YOUR HOUSE?

Have you been spending enough time with your children? It would be a shame if you spent so much time contributing to public cyber discourse, public service, community work and yet your family hardly sees nor hears you. Have you been treating your spouse well? Have you been disciplining your children in love and not in anger? Have you encouraged them to seek after wisdom by reading books? Fellow young people yet to be blessed with that burden, how much time have you given to dreaming about your future children? Have you thought how you'd raise them in a hostile world—a world that is sure to tear them apart? What values will you communicate to them when they come? Bear in mind the most powerful form of communication is to walk the talk. God forbid our kids would be like those described above. Even as I write this I shudder to think that I may be inadequate. Yet I hope...

In the days of old, a biblical hero named Nehemiah rallied his fellow Israelites to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. He and the people completed the task in 52 days! (A feat we would not likely match despite our modern technology). His most effective method was to get families to build the section of the wall just outside or nearest to their houses. And every family rose to the task diligently. Each family would have had a father who would have believed that the greatness of Jerusalem counted on him and his family’s contribution. He would have then rallied his household, shaped his family to be positive impacts of society. He would have been a good family man.

When my kids come into this world and meet yours...would they talk of great parents who taught them to be respectful to each other, to be loving and caring, courteous, to be honest and diligent, to be punctual? To understand right and wrong using objective truth and morality (as opposed to subjective relativistic morality)? Would they have learnt from their parents to be deep thinkers? To have empathy for fellow man? To respect the rule of Law? To be Patriots? Would they understand that the greatness of this beautiful nation depends not on great policies or economic models, or foolproof legislation, or on systems and processes; but on great people—starting with them?

I certainly hope those things for my unborn children. I think about them regularly. Heck I even have names for them already!  I worry about what sort of world they will come into and how I would help them navigate these terrible seas. I’m grateful I had parents that gave me direction. I hope I would do a good job when my time comes. And I hope that you would too...or that you are doing a good job right now.

MAKING OUR NATION GREAT STARTS RIGHT WHERE IT SHOULD—“MY HOUSE FIRST”!

GOD BLESS PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Heavenise Day!

Gg

(10/09/11)