Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley has called on the extended family to continue the Barbadian tradition of looking out for and assisting in the rearing of children.
Ms. Mottley made the call this evening as she delivered the feature address at the Unveiling Ceremony for the Monument to the Barbadian Family, at National Heroes Square, The City.
The Prime Minister told her audience, including the President of Barbados, Her Excellency The Most Honourable Dame Sandra Mason; members of Cabinet, members of Parliament, and the public, that family support was vital. She expressed the view that over time the family institution had not received the needed healing.
“I ask us today to continue that tradition because it is only through solidarity, community and family that we can rise to be the best that we can…. As a small nation, we need everyone moving in the same direction if we are going to make difficult things seem achievable, easy and possible….
“More often than not, it is the extended family that makes the difference as to whether the journey of that particular child can be smooth or whether it becomes disruptive,” she stated.
Ms. Mottley stressed the importance of the family throughout her address, and said any suggestion that Government would do anything to denigrate the family in this country “is so offensive”.
“The notion that we are here to impose on our children capacity and obligation, … to determine their identity and their gender is as preposterous as giving them the right to determine that they can consent to sex as minors, and therefore it must be put to rest where it belongs – in the garbage heaps of this country….
“When our Father of Independence said that we were friends of all and satellites of none, he wasn’t only talking about relationships with countries, he was talking about the arrogance of the people of this nation or the confidence, depending through whose prism you are looking at it, to determine that we can chart our own ways and we can be firm craftsmen of our fate.
“We do not take tutelage from anyone as to who is and is not the family. We do not take tutelage from anyone as to what matters in terms of our mission. If that which we have settled, we agree with others, then that is solidarity. But the notion that others shall determine our future by reason simply of relationships outside of the bounds of this geography is preposterous equally, and must equally be put one side,” the Prime Minister said.
The monument to the Barbadian Family – We Loyal Sons and Daughters All – follows their journey and recognises them as the heroic beacons of our nation, from which all national heroes came. The design of the monument focuses on the history of slavery and oppression; the endurance and resilience of the Barbadian family; and the family’s role in producing our National Heroes.
The monument, which was designed by Vincent Jones and Hugh Holder, reflects the struggle and commitment of the ancestral family, and the rise and life it gave to the modern kinfolk.