hurray for bad memories.

[kuangning]

Take a look at that. When you've read it, come on back.

I talk a lot about the beauty of the island I grew up on. I've mentioned the teachers, the way everyone knew everyone else's family, the way we were one family. What I have not talked about is the family secrets, for the most part.

I know most of you read that article and your reaction was, "how shocking, how awful, how can such things happen?!?"

My reaction was something more along the lines of, "and this is different how?"

The treatment that poor, naive reporter seems so horrified by isn't anything new. Caribbean children live with that and much worse every day. It doesn't shock us. It's the norm. Not an interlude in our lives that ends in a year or two or four. That's our childhood. That's what we get, and we never find out there's anything else until we leave the islands.

Ask Caribbean parents what they expect from their children, and they will look at you as if you have lost your mind. "They have to listen. They have to have respect. They have to do well (in school, at work, wherever else the parent feels is necessary)." Some will say, "they have to help out at home," and that will be the least onerous thing on the list. The problem comes in with the first two items. Because "listen" is a euphemism for blind obedience, and "respect" involves unquestioning loyalty. A child who doesn't display those qualities is "harden" (hardened, meaning stubborn, wayward, incorrigible,) and any means the parents feel are necessary can be employed to correct that.

In Trinidad, when we emigrated, there was no such animal as "Rights of the Child." That bit of idealism wouldn't be signed until 1990, and as late as 2000, Trinidad still had no legislature dealing with "child abuse" or torture. The age at which a child can be put to work is still 12. And only in 2000 or so was corporal punishment abolished in schools, amid the protests of educators. But those things are insignificant next to the real problem.

The family is sacrosanct in the Caribbean. Discipline is strictly a family issue, now that it's been removed from the schools, and it's set solely by parents. A child who dares to complain about punishment is "harden" and "disrespectful", and is in for even more punishment. Some of the behaviours described in that article -- rolling your eyes, speaking without permission -- routinely bring beatings. Those, in my family and the families of almost every one of my friends, were accompanied by remonstrations of "look what you're making me do, I just want you to behave, I love you and want what's best for you." That makes it squarely the child's fault, and the parent looks long-suffering, victim of the child's "misbehaviour". It's then in the child's self-interest to conceal beatings, because no shame accrues to the parent, just to the child.

What's worse than being beaten and/or injured, is loving the person who hurts you. And in the Caribbean, that love is dictated. Like those children at Tranquility Bay, children in the Caribbean have to think in acceptable ways, and thank their elders for teaching them to do so. They have to give love and devotion to people who are, often, more interested in the show of love than in mutual respect. A Caribbean child would not dare tell a parent, "I hate you" or "I don't like you." No matter how one actually feels, the only emotions reserved for parents are positive ones. Love, respect, and above all, gratitude. Showing anything else only means that every adult involved in your life will make changing your mind a project.

I'm not unsympathetic to the kids at Tranquility Bay, really I'm not. But I know that eventually, someone will shut down Tranquility Bay. The poor little rich kids there will get out and go home. And the kids who actually live in the Caribbean will go right on living that reality that shocks people when it happens to rich American kids.

And that's the way it goes.

Comments

[poopsmoothie.livejournal.com]

That's fucking terrifying.

[pezstar.livejournal.com]

We live in a shell here in America. We look at the rest of the world, and we say "oh, that's so sad! That's so terrible!" But it's never real to us, or at least not to me. Take the war in Iraq. It's easy to think about it, be upset by it, and want it to stop, but it's much more difficult to think about it, think about the fact that people are dying, people are hurt and people are scared. It's easy to consciously know that something is going on somewhere, but it's much harder to understand what is going on.

I think that this is a good example of that. I read the article, and thought WHAT THE HELL?! Those kids are being treated so terribly!! Make it stop!" ANd then I came back and read your post, and it made me think "wew, that's real".

Do you understand what I'm saying? I don't verbalize too well sometimes.

[laura.livejournal.com]

I think you know I sure as hell don't advocate abuse, emotional or physical. Beatings are never right. But that description of a strict atmosphere without talking or ways in which those kids get to pleasurably augment their lives?

But I DO believe that if some of those "poor little rich kids" had been taught things like respect when they were younger...

*sigh*

I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't like the extreme of that camp but I DO believe in the principles behind it. And while I heartily disagree with that as a total way of life, I find some of it appealing as a way to get through to a teenager who just DOESN'T GET IT.

[lothie.livejournal.com]

Actually, my horror stems from the idea that someone would pay that much money to send their children to such a facility rather than raising them right in the first place.

[fifthconundrum.livejournal.com]

It went that way in my family right here in America, and if there is any Caribbean blood in us, it's quite a few generations removed.

[kuangning]

My problem with that camp isn't the fact that these parents are trying to straighten out their kids.

It's the fact that they're:

• trying to straighten out their kids without investing any time of their own.
  
• dumping their kids in the hands of strangers who begin the experience with an early-morning abduction and later the kids find out the treatment's sanctioned by their parents.
  
• demanding "respect" and "love" from the same children they did that to.
  
• allowing others to employ brutal treatment without dirtying their own hands -- you can't tell me that any parent sends a child off with a staged "abduction" into a program and doesn't at least have hints that the program may not be above-board. They don't care what methods are employed, they just don't want to use them themselves because then little Johnny may not like them anymore. This way, the instructors are the bad guys, and little Johnny still loves Mommy and Daddy who loved him enough to send him there and pay big money to keep him there.

Re:

[laura.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, I disagree with ALL of those aspects.

I DO think that sometimes a kid can't or won't learn from their parent any longer, so outside help might be helpful, but everything you've listed is just WRONG.

Re:

[kuangning]

*nods.* I agree with that, though I don't think that's necessarily a negative thing. I don't know why we expect that parents are always the best ones to teach things to their own children. The fact is, children have minds and personalities of their own, and sometimes they don't mesh well with their parents'. When that happens, you find an adult who's more effective in that case, and you monitor while they intervene for you. You don't, however, simply send the child away to strangers across the ocean and wait for them to return your kid, as if he were a malfunctioning watch you sent off for repair.

[kuangning]

Oh, I know. Unfortunately, it does happen here as well. Luckily enough, though, there isn't a national culture here that's conducive to it. The worst offenders get caught and punished. That rarely ever happens there.

[kuangning]

Heh.

That would involve time and effort on their part, though, and maybe they would have to change their own attitudes. Much simpler just to pay someone to fix your child.

[kuangning]

I understand, yes. *hugs.* And someone asked me, "what are you doing about it?" -- well, this is what I can do. I can say something.

[rare.livejournal.com]

Having been in a "failed family" and not starting a family of my own, it's difficult if not hypocritical to say too much. I'd echo some of the sentiments already seen in your comments. It's surprising that there's actually a place that caters to this sort of demand -- but then, that's the glory of capitalism.

I think the single most important thing to remember and require is responsibility. It shouldn't have to be overshadowed by love, but it seems like so many people don't want to honor their commitments. Oi, the downward spiral.

[delcan.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's shocking and horrible when it happens to rich white kids.

It's shocking and horrible when it happens to poor brown kids too. It doesn't matter where it happens, or who it happens to. It's gotta fucking change. I for one hope that this world is on the verge of finally realizing its own monstrous nature, and taking steps to get rid of it. It started just a hundred years or so ago. It's not gonna stop, not as long as people know it happens.

And if it doesn't, this world isn't viable for anything.

[tobeskye.livejournal.com]

The whole thing seems very worrying to me, what kind of people will this camp turn out?
Although i have to admit, i would send my little brother there.

Of course they would need to airlift the survivors, and its very likly the owners would never be able work again after they got out of hospital, and we would get sued, so perhaps not.

[arhuaine.livejournal.com]

My first thought was the same as Lothies; that the most scary thing is that people will pay megabucks to send their kids there (and yet as you point out, the local kids get the same treatment for free). I'm sure the only reason the place is in the Carribean is because it would violate US laws on child abuse. Those parents would do better to spend the $40,000 on some parenting classes, and do the job themselves. Then perhaps they can *earn* respect instead of demanding it.

[trippykel.livejournal.com]

Wow. I really had no idea. *hugs*

[baxil.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry.

[berrisweet.livejournal.com]

hello my name is nat do you want to be friends? (ps if my friend eva asks to be ur friend say no)