It cannot be bad parenting

Dear Editor, 

Interesting to read the reactions of people to the photo of the boy sleeping at the McDonald’s curb. To people who say that is the result of bad parenting, that is so off the mark. 

Parents in general love their children and do the best they can with the circumstances they are presented with and to their abilities. 

This is a truth in every society in the world. 

You can always find an odd example of a bad parent that you can try to blame for a bad system just as you can find a lazy individual in a society where most work hard or a welfare cheat that takes instead of gives to society, but overall a common person does the best they can for their children with the circumstances, opportunities, and resources they are presented with. 

When you see an epidemic of child street vendors this is not an indication of bad parenting, it is an indication of a broken social system. 

The epidemic of child poverty in Samoa falls straight on the corrupt shoulders of the H.R.P.P who are awarding themselves higher than developed nation salaries for inadequate job results. 

If what you say is true and if there is in fact an epidemic of child abuse and child neglect in Samoa by parents, then you must ask yourself why? 

Why is it that proportionally to the rest of the world, do Samoan people, but only of those living in Samoa, seem to be so flawed of character that they hate their children on such epidemic proportion as to abuse them and neglect them and turn them out to the dangers of the street in such great numbers. 

Even if you answer that the parents are selfish, why are they so needy, that their selfishness causes them to endanger their children, especially if , according to some people there is no poverty in Samoa. 

You need to compare this to the rest of the world. Your argument just doesn’t make reasonable sense. 

Your argument goes against human natures need to survive as a species. If it is in fact true in Samoa though that neglect and abuse are so common amongst parents, then ask why. 

Is there too much religion? Is there too much development at a rapid pace? Is there too much inequality? Are they just biologically pre determined to be mean spirited child abusers at their core? 

What is it that is making Samoan people, in Samoa, so much more abusive and neglectful to their children than people in other parts of the world? 

It can’t be poverty, because according to the PM, Hollywood, and PS Jeffrey, poverty doesn’t exist in Samoa, so it must be an innate character flaw in Samoan people, who live in Samoa.

 But I don’t think so. 

If you think about it, and reasonably conclude that the parents of these children probably do love them, just like parents everywhere love their children, then you have to ask yourself these questions and ask what is it that is causing them to allow their children to become street vendors? 

Ask yourself that Farmer boy. 

Maybe the focus should be on an unaccountable government instead of the parents of these poor children who are victims of the unaccountable government in Samoa, who award themselves 200,000 tala salaries plus perks but keep the minimum wage of those who pay their salaries at 2 tala per hour.

 

Wendy Wonder 

Samoa Observer

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