The times they are a-changin

The Editor, MADAM:

When US songwriter Bob Dylan wrote The Times They Are A-Changin in 1964, he must have had a peek into Jamaica 2025.

Back when he penned those lyrics in the 1960s, little girls in Jamaica played with dolls. Today the have real babies.

Consider the following headline: ‘14-year-old teenager and 10-month-old-baby missing’. Thankfully, they were found unarmed. Logics suggest she has been sexually active at least from 13.

Questions: Where are her parents?

Where is the child’s father?

How come they are not in jail?

What of the doctor(s) who examined her?

Did they make a report as they should under the law?

Boys are not to be left out. Back then 15-year-olds played with toy guns which fired corks or paper claps. Today, they engage the police with automatic hand guns and rifles.

Not to mention in those days a favourite game for children was hide and seek. Now they run away from home leaving parents in anguish trying to find them.

“Come mothers and fathers throughout the land,

And don’t criticise what you can’t understand,

Your sons and daughters are beyond your command,

Your old road is rapidly aging

Please get out of the new one

If you can’t lend your hand.

The Times They Are A-changin.”

DELROY HENRY

Norbrook,

St Andrew.