A story in last Saturday's STAR spoke again of the sad state of affairs in the island's schools. In this situation, it was a school in Hanover, which has been opened for less than two years.

The school has been plagued by violence. The story reported that sometimes there were up to three violent fights in a day requiring police intervention.

Someone at the school said in the article that the fights have increased since the addition of several students from inner-city communities in Hanover and St James this past school year.

This raises the question of parenting constraints. We acknowledge that inner-city communities are generally poor, forcing parents, mostly single-parent families, to work, sometimes at odd hours just to keep up with the daily expenses.

This clearly leaves little time for parents to take care of the emotional and mental needs of the child. Our society's work ethic is also not very supportive of parenting. Mothers get three months maternity in the crucial first year of the child's life. And in most cases, fathers cannot find a well-paying job so that the mother can remain at home and nurture the child in his earlier years.

It is clear that we are facing a parenting dilemma and instead of everyone complaining, the Government needs to put some things in place to ensure that parents in Jamaica receive the necessary support they need. We need to recognise that we are grooming the future leaders of our society and we need to help parents provide the support to properly care for our children.