PM: Children are a BLESSING
Holness grateful to be part of teen sons’ lives
PRIME MINISTER Andrew Holness’ eyes lit up last week as he unleashed a string of adjectives to describe his tech-loving, on-the-brink-of-adulthood son Adam, and the exercise and music-loving Matthew, who have made him fulfil his dream of being a father.
Seventeen-year-old Adam and 15-year-old Matthew have now graduated to calling him ‘Dad’, up from ‘Daddy’, an endearment he has heard countless times but one he will never get tired of hearing.
In an interview with The Sunday Gleaner last week, Holness delved into his story of planned parenthood, the excitement of becoming a dad, and the journey to date. And as he spoke passionately, his light-brown/greyish eyes beamed with pride as he reflected, sometimes helping to paint a picture of satisfaction.
“I wanted to be a father,” said Holness, 47, Jamaica’s ninth prime minister, who got married to Juliet Landell in 1997.
“Literally, we planned parenthood, so we planned for our children and made preparations for them. So, for me, it was a very exciting time, so there were no issues of being unprepared and having to put things in place. Those things were already done,” he told The Sunday Gleaner.
PLANNING FOR CHILDREN
Acutely aware of the importance of planning for children, he pointed out that whether planned or unplanned, “children are a blessing”.
Asked whether he has ever wished he had a daughter, Holness burst into laughter.
“I view my children as a blessing for me. I have two sons, and, I don’t know what it is to have a daughter. I have always wondered what that would be like,” he said. “I guess there is probably a difference between raising a daughter and raising a son, but when they are babies, there is no real difference. But who knows? Who knows?”
Holness spoke of the joys of being a dad, with his roles along the journey evolving from planning, anticipating, welcoming, loving and caring, to making school runs, counselling, calming, listening, advising and affirming. Never one to shy away from his own humble beginnings, he said his aim was always to give his boys what he never had. “I grew up in very humble circumstances, where I was not exposed to many things, did not have many things, and, therefore, I made it a priority to ensure that my children did not necessarily suffer the same fate as I would have in growing up,” he said.
With both himself and Juliet being working professionals all their lives, Holness was once a stay-at-home dad.
“When my children were just born, I was still an opposition member of parliament. My wife was working. I took time off because my time was flexible, so I stayed home. So I did the drop-offs and the pick-ups, and just be with them. So between ages two and four, I was there,” he said. “But when we (the Jamaica Labour Party) won [the general election] in 2007 and I became a minister, things changed, and I wasn’t there as much – from ages six and four to about 12 and 14 years. But then I picked up back, and I am spending far more time with them now in their teenage years than in their early adolescent years.”