Mother’s Day, like Father’s Day, may be a good time for reflection for it has something to do with family life and the bringing up of children everywhere. Small societies like Anguilla can easily become tarnished by wanton behavioural patterns among young people. For this reason the challenge to maintain high standards of discipline and to keep youngsters out of trouble appears to be even greater. Experience these days has shown that unless there is strict parental guidance and control in the home environment, we stand a great risk of having a generation of unruly people among our population, if not now, certainly later on.

Reports from some of the schools in particular speak about a type of rudeness and a lack of respect that sometimes is mind-boggling and worrisome. It is troubling because these young people whom we are about to lose are in fact the pillars on which Anguilla hopes to build its future. The deviant behaviour is often blamed on the home and there are parents who openly admit that their children are out of control. It is either that they waited too late to exercise control over them or they simply allowed them to have their own way. The age-old exhortation in the Bible
“to train up a child in the way he should go” still holds good today and we see the sad results when this advice is ignored.

Mothers should use the occasion of Mother’s Day as a time for renewal to pledge to the Almighty, themselves and the society that they will practise good parenthood in the home and be role models for their off-springs. Churches, schools, youth organisations, other bodies and individuals closely associated with our young people should all do their part to direct the island’s youth into pathways of wholesome and productive living.

A debt of gratitude is owed to those who are concerned about our young people and involve them in clubs, organisations and other groupings on the island. We need to harness their energies into productive activities for by doing so we are protecting our young people, a great national resource. To let them go astray would be one of the biggest disservices we can do to Anguilla and its people. Parental responsibility and leadership in the home however remain key factors in youth guidance, direction and discipline and in the preservation of our small society.

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