Superstar rapper Nellie found himself embroiled in controversy last year for telling parents to “raise your own kids.” Nellie made this statement after years of heavy criticism for being a poor role model because of the saucy lyrical content of his music and the misogynistic flavour of his videos, particularly the video for his song “Tip Drill”. In an interview with the Voice Newspaper, a publication aimed at the Afro-Caribbean community in England, he said:
“Back in the day, our parents took responsibility (for raising their children) and I’m doing the same. I’m not gonna leave it to Lil Wayne, or Jeezy or Amy Winehouse to raise my kids. I love those artists but it’s not their job to raise my kids. That’s my job. I’m sure this isn’t a new theory, so how about we just raise our kids? How about that?”
While I don’t really like Nellie’s music nor the lyrics of many other musicians of all genres, I have to say a hearty AMEN. I am SO fed with people holding those in the public eye largely responsible for the moral decay in our societies.
Celebrities DID NOT sign up to parent everybody’s children. They signed up for the chance to live their dream. The general public and papparazzi may automatically confer upon them the responsibility of moral guardians for the nations, but that does NOT mean that they can be or should be.
I have listened to many heated televised debates on the roles that public figures play in negatively influencing culture, particularly youth culture. The debate usually ends with the public figures being confirmed as the villains and the host trying to elicit some sort of promise that said villains will clean up their acts in future as they are role models for our youth. The majority of people hosting these debates are highly educated and intelligent people, so I am always surprised that no one asks the one question which, for me, is very obvious: why aren’t the parents the role models for their children?
Why is the influence of famous people on these children far greater than the influence of their parents? For me this is the question that needs to be answered. Excluding those who became pregnant through violation, every person/couple who has children chose to do so, therefore they are responsible for ensuring their children are raised correctly, not actors, rappers and sports stars. It seems to me that those who are pointing the finger at public figures for their children’s behaviour are simply looking to lay the blame for their own shortcomings as parents at someone else’s door.
There are many factors that contribute to anti-social behaviour and one of those factors is choice. We forget that the youth of whom we are speaking have chosen to do the things they have done. Little or no influence was needed.
Long gone are the days when grownups could reprimand a youth and expect to be listened to. Over the last few years in England the papers have reported with alarming regularity the murders of men, women and young adults who been killed while stepping in to challenge or speak to people who were behaving in an antisocial manner. The parents have shown little concern about the heinous acts of their offspring. In one shocking case the grandmother of a teenage boy found guilty of murdering a have-a-go-hero said that person who died “deserved it. He should have minded his own business.” When the situation hasn’t gone as far as murder, people have been verbally and sometimes physically abused for trying to correct wayward children and youth. Their parents did not take kindly to other “villagers” helping them to raise their child.
I grew up in a ultra strict household. We weren’t allowed to do many of the things that our peers did. In hindsight I can see that it was my parents’ way of trying to protect us, but to my siblings and I it could be a pretty hellish existence at times. My way of escape was to lose myself in books and films. However, I knew the difference between fantasy and reality. The things I read and watched were fantasy; the reality was that I lived in my parents’ house and if I had pulled some of the stunts that my heroines had I would have been in serious trouble!!! Even though I wasn’t allowed, I knew that I could pretty much read and watch anything I wanted and not run out and copy what I had seen and read. Why? Because my parents, as strict as they were, were the role models for me; it didn't matter what other people were doing, I knew not to copy them if it was different to what my parents had taught me.
Society needs to get back to a place where individuals take responsibility for their behaviour. We are responsible for the things that we do and the choices that we make. If, as is very evident in England at least, parents do not want others correcting their children and do not want them to be influenced by what they perceive as negative cultures, then it is up to those parents to step fully into the breach using every means available to them to raise their young men and women to be responsible, law abiding individuals. Because at the end of the day, they alone will give an account for how their children were brought up. No one else.
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