Raising Boys

03Oct09

In the Nation’s coverage of adoption in Barbados two things stuck me:

Single women are more likely to adopt than couples (i’m assuming couples refers to heterosexual marriage).

Most people interested in adoption did not want to adopt boys.

The coordinator of foster care and adoption at the Child Care Board is quoted as saying:

“Women between age 30 and up is the primary age bracket for those who come forward to express interest in adopting. For the year they have had 14 applicants, which they are currently processing but expect more by the end of the year, and the majority of them are women.
And the women who come forward have fortunately been able to provide the boy children they’ve either fostered or adopted with a connection to a male role model. That aspect is very important for males to have someone who will have some input in their lives,” she stated, emphasising there was a distinct difference in the way boys responded to male authoritative figures as opposed to female figures.

I agree that boys need positive father figures in their lives (girls do too).

What troubles me is the assumption that that boys generally have no regard for women’s opinions and that they are either harmed by women authority figures or do not view women as legitimate authority figures. Indeed, the assumption that boys need “authority” and not more importantly unconditional love, care and attention from someone who is willing and capable serves to reproduce gender in a way that is harmful for boys.

We are failing too many of our boys in the Caribbean. The ideologies that view them as difficult because they are boys, that equate fatherhood with discipline and authority and little else; and view women and girls as some how inimical to boys’ education and lives are harmful and devastating to our children who above all deserve our love and care.

Filed under: Barbados, caribbean, gender   |  3 Comments
Tags: adoption, adoption in Barbados, boys and adoption, Caribbean family, Caribbean masculinity, gender and adoption, race/class/colour/gender in the caribbean