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The first time I heard the news through the grapevine, I didn’t believe it. He was a good kid. Growing up without a father had been tough for him but all along I had believed he matured early for his age. True, he had gotten his girlfriend pregnant but knowing it took two to tango, I couldn’t lay the blame completely at his door. Anyway much as it pains me to say it, it seems the common trend these days.
The young ones of today are not the young ones Cliff Richard sang so gaily about in my time. They have the misfortune of wanting to “run before they could walk”. When a close relative of mine remarked about it I decided to take some course of action. Speaking to a teenager today though is like speaking to a brick wall, you get absolutely zero for an answer or else a quick dash to the front door and out he goes, it’s either the silence of the lambs, out from where he came from or else a hot denial which people in Gozo are liable to hear.
Oh yes, it’s so easy being a parent especially a single parent! When I saw with my very own two eyes the way he drove through the narrow street where I lived I felt three things: love, contempt and fear. Love for the son I loved so dearly and whom I did not want dead because of over-speeding, contempt because he should have known better than speeding through a narrow street which nearly got him into a brawl with two young men, knowing that my son had no astigmatism to prevent him from seeing the actual speed limit he was driving at, and fear of him causing somebody’s death due through his own irresponsibility.
It was as if a hog’s head had settled on my heart the day I reported him to the police but I had no choice. He didn’t want to listen. Some of my own “friends” thought I was Lady Macbeth to do such a “thing” to my own son. Others laughed in my face and told me that the police would do nothing about it. The latter were right. It was only through sheer coincidence that I had a meeting with Commissioner of Police John Rizzo about another matter, that I brought up the subject of my son’s wrong-doings that the cordial Commissioner informed the police station in question where I had reported my son to take action immediately and give a serious warning to my son. I have no regrets about what I did. My only regret is I had to speak to the Commissioner before my son turned over a new leaf.
The most hurtful thing of all is that the police never took action. Are mothers who report their sons for over-speeding are seen as vindictive creatures out for revenge maybe because mummy isn’t the first love of their life anymore? I wonder how many parents know what a jack-ass they have for a son who might kill themselves or others and keep mum by not talking to people of high authority like I did. People who blame the government for our rotten roads have every right to do so but it’s not the roads who actually kill people but the over-speeding. Surely parents who know there darlings are homicidal maniacs should do something about the latter’s joy-riding. What can the police do if mummy and daddy “love” their kid too much to report him for over-speeding?
Easy answer: there are fifty four localities in Malta. Now if one police car patrolled the area especially during the night, they would be able to pounce on whoever was over speeding and less parents would be shoved into a hell of their own by the loss of their loved ones.
Would Oswaldo, Christian, Fabio, David and Mario be alive today if a patrol car was allocated in that area? Would the driver of the van who created a holocaust be bending over backwards with remorse had he the decency to think of life as a precious gift from God? Would parents report their sons for over-speeding?
I did and I have no regrets. I’d rather have my son calling me a cantankerous curse than me seeing him in a hearse.
Valerie Borg
Valletta councillor (MLP)
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