A Message From The Editor
Silver Spoon
By Bobby R. Henry, Sr.
Allow me to state that being born with a “silver spoon” in your mouth does not prevent a sense of shame and the feeling of failure to some parents. However, when families seem to “have it all,” the mistakes are magnified a thousand times over.
Being born with what many call a silver spoon in your mouth is not all the glamour and glitz it is made out to be. If you keep up with the gossip from England, you very well know that the now “King” Charles had a soiled relationship with the media. His marriage to Lady Diana and affair with the now “Queen” Camilla (explain that one) were played out for the world to see and speculate. His son, Prince Harry and wife Princess Meghan, threw their silver spoon back with some color, “Thanks, but no thanks…” Even so, they have remained in the media with interviews and tell all books from the palace’s hired help.
The pains of a silver spoon are not just for kings, queens, princes, and princesses. Traveling to US soil, many children of entertainers and even presidents are saddled with the pressures of the dreaded silver spoon. From Chelsea Clinton being ridiculed by the media, even as a child to the twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara Bush’s public battle with multiple incidents involving alcohol and other drugs, balancing the silver spoon and spotlight can prove difficult. While Sasha and Malia Obama have remained relatively unscathed, social media has taken pleasure in posting pictures and video of Malia smoking cigarettes and Sasha twerking to rap music.
Locally, politicians have faced similar embarrassments with their children. Damara Holness, daughter of Dale Holness, was involved in a COVID fund scandal that landed her in jail for 20 months. Young Ms. Holness applied for and received more than $300,000 from the Paycheck Protection Program and produced fraudulent payroll tax forms for a pseudo company that employed 18 people with close to $120,000 in monthly payroll expenses. Daughter Holness brought shame and accusations to her father, former Broward County mayor, Dale Holness and quite possibly contributed to him losing the democratic ticket for the US House Seat in August.
Within the last week, another high-profile local politician’s daughter was arrested on federal charges and is being held in a Broward County Jail for the US Marshall’s Office. Monica Jenkins, the daughter of Clerk of Courts, Brenda Jenkins Foreman was arrested on federal charges alleging that she filed numerous fake tax returns. She and right codefendants hacked into computer servers of several businesses and used stolen identities to file hundreds of fraudulent tax returns which yielded them millions in tax refunds. Upon learning, Brenda Foreman was most likely a cross between shocked and hurt beyond measure.
Some of us are scratching our heads and asking ourselves, with all that these young people had, born with a silver spoon in their mouths, how could they do something so stupid? I say, “Judge not. All that glimmer sho ain’t gold.”
What can be said? Not much other than a mother ‘s and father’s love remains steady and unconditional even in the worst of times, the biggest disappointments, and the most embarrassing situations.
In his poem titled On Children the great poet Khalil Gibran wrote:
And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children. And he said: Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness. For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
