Adult responsibility—protecting the children

“Is Trinidad we living in, you know? Tomorrow is not promised to anybody.”

The words were overheard from a teenager, no more than 14, before school on a Monday morning, spoken matter-of-factly to his friend. This just a day after the body of 12-year-old Mercedez Layne was found with blunt-force trauma to her head. She was in the simple act of going home to her parents. Two-year-old Angelo Tobias-Plaza is still missing in Tobago.

No child should grow up believing that violence is simply part of life. Yet for too many young people in Trinidad and Tobago, tragedy has become so common that it no longer shocks—it merely confirms what they already expect.

The statement itself is true. Tomorrow is not promised to anyone. Faith teaches us that life is fragile and that every day is a gift from God. But there is a profound difference between recognising the uncertainty of life and accepting violence as a normal feature of daily existence.

When a child who should be starting his school day and week with the normal dread, and perhaps mischief, of the average schoolboy begins to speak the language of resignation, and maybe underlying existential dread, something has gone terribly wrong.

Many have never known a Trinidad and Tobago that felt genuinely safe. They have grown up hearing of, and perhaps seeing, murders, kidnappings, gang violence, abuse, and disappearances. They have seen adults express outrage, then move on to the next tragedy. Adults create the culture children inherit.

We adults have failed our children when we tolerated corruption because it benefited us. We failed them when we excused criminality because the offender was a relative, a friend, or someone from our community. The morally grey area we have been occupying must cease.

One of the most uncomfortable truths facing our nation is that criminal activity rarely exists in complete secrecy. Family members know, neighbours suspect, and friends laugh it off. This circumstance should not be one where you drink water and mind your business.

Something personal

The protection of criminal family members is not love. It is a corruption of love. True love for a child, a sibling, or a spouse who has gone into darkness is to refuse to shield them from accountability. The mother who says nothing about what her son is doing is not keeping him safe. She is keeping him dangerous.

One teenager already believes that tomorrow is not promised because this is Trinidad and Tobago. Our national crisis is deeper than crime statistics. It is a crisis of hope.

The answer will require better policing, stronger institutions, and greater accountability. But it will also require something more personal.

Families must stop shielding wrongdoing. Communities must become vigilant again, not as vigilantes, but looking out for the well-being and safety of each member.

Parents must reclaim their responsibility to form conscience, character, and a spiritual anchor.

This has nothing to do with politics, ethnicity or class, the great dividers, but civic and human responsibility if Trinidad and Tobago and its young people are to thrive.

It is every adult’s responsibility to protect our children from violence, exploitation and those who would recruit them into criminality. We owe that much to Mercedez Layne, every child who is watching, and that teenager who should be dreaming about his life ahead instead of preparing for the worst.

And we must pray, not because prayer is an easy escape from reality, but because prayer changes hearts. It gives courage to confront evil, strength to persevere in difficult circumstances, and hope when despair threatens to take root.