As I look around today… I look at the children... The reflection of our future… I observe videos posted online of our babies. I wasn’t around during the era where little girl’s wore dresses and bow ties. I wasn’t around for the era when little boys played with trucks and cars. I can only imagine growing up in those times.
My children are growing up in an era where it is cute to curse, where they are encouraged to wear shirts that show breasts that haven’t formed and a belly that still had baby fat around it. They wear eye liner and lip gloss before they can read. They can sing Nikki Manaj but have no idea who Jackie Joyner Kersee.
It makes me wonder… WHO ARE RAISING THESE CHILDREN?? I understand being a parent is hard. I understand it comes without a manual. But what is the difference in US as parents today, when compared to the parents in previous generations??? Every morning I have conversations with my spiritual sister and today’s topic, like many other days, revolved around the status of men, black men in particular.
The conversations on the quality of our black men today lead to the quality of black families. She mentioned to me the welfare system and how it was designed. We basically agreed, the demise of the black family began in our parent’s era. Our parents are both in their 50’s. So, when they started their families, it was during the era when “Black Men”had difficulties getting jobs. Dads couldn’t work (legally we can address the drug era at a different time) and as a result, mothers were encouraged to use welfare. The catch with welfare is a man couldn’t live within the home. So if you take a man out the home give the woman money in his place thus creating an “independent” dependent. Does it make sense?
The man isn’t in the home. So his family isn’t his family anymore. The man naturally is a provider but at this point, you have replaced the provider with a system that does what he does so he feels he isn’t needed. As a result, he goes somewhere where he feels like he is needed; starts a new family and BOOM: The cycle is repeating. But wait, it gets better. So now we have a black man with multiple children, with multiple women. What happens next? The women began to hate each other. Why? Because they see the one another as competition; which leads to women hating each other and also hating the man they happen to have children with which in turns creates broken children because the two people who created them hate each other and they are forced to grow up in an hostile environment. I hope this is making sense. In summary, the final result is we have black families that are angry and fighting all because they were simply trying to get ahead, but they were using a system that given to them instead of strategically planning and creating a system of their own. The catch is the “system” they thought was designed to help them grow together was actually designed to tear them apart and has contributed to the demise of African Americans as people, as a family unit.
Today, we have children who do not understand the importance of the family foundation. They do not have values. They do not have morals. They do not have self-respect. They got caught between the battle of mommy fighting daddy because their “half” sister was born. Our children have become victims of a war waged against black marriages, black families and black communities.
And our children are lost. You have little girls in the streets searching for the attention they should be getting from home. You have men acting as women because they have no one around to show them what it means to be a man. We have broken people creating broken children and the cycle will continue until we take a moment to recognize what we are doing wrong and actually do something to fix it. My point in all of this: It all starts at home and with us; with the family. Build a solid foundation. Become a team as husband and wife with God as the head coach. Create your plans first. Then build your roster (with children.) It is time our families begin to be families again. Teach our children and guide our children.
