Joshua Sur­tees

Mon­i­ca Starke de­scribes her­self as a "lifestyle coach." Com­ing soon in a week­ly col­umn called The Starke Re­al­i­ty in the T&T Guardian, she will be im­part­ing the ben­e­fit of her wis­dom, ac­quired over many years as a fam­i­ly and chil­dren's coun­sel­lor, an or­gan­i­sa­tion­al de­vel­op­ment con­sul­tant, run­ning a kids' day care cen­tre and as the moth­er of five chil­dren.

"I'm fo­cused on help­ing in­di­vid­u­als, their fam­i­lies, and or­gan­i­sa­tions to func­tion at their op­ti­mum," says Starke in an in­ter­view in an air-con­di­tioned cafe in Wood­brook.

"I've reached the stage where I want to do what I en­joy most and what I en­joy most, and what I'm good at, is help­ing peo­ple be­come their best selves."

In the midst of an­oth­er year of cease­less vi­o­lence in cer­tain sec­tions of T&T so­ci­ety, Starke main­tains the opin­ion that im­prov­ing fam­i­ly life and func­tion­al­i­ty is a fun­da­men­tal build­ing block to com­bat­ting crime–lay­ing the build­ing blocks of sta­ble, am­bi­tious and suc­cess­ful lives as op­posed to rais­ing young peo­ple in an en­vi­ron­ment of chaos, fear and ag­gres­sion.

"Look at what's hap­pen­ing in the world," she says, "I'm urg­ing fam­i­lies to pro­vide a sanc­tu­ary, be­cause if our chil­dren can't come home to a sanc­tu­ary they will find it else­where."

She's at a point in her life, she says, where she could take it easy af­ter years of hard work, but she doesn't want to rest. She feels it is a priv­i­lege to have ac­quired the knowl­edge and skills she has.

"What am I go­ing to do with it?" she asks. "I don't want to die with this knowl­edge, I want to share it. And this is why I'm go­ing back in­to the me­dia, be­cause I think the me­dia is a pow­er­ful teacher."

She used to write for news­pa­pers and pre­sent­ed shows on Ra­dio Trinidad.

Does she think we're at a point in time where it's hard­er than in the past for peo­ple to func­tion prop­er­ly?

"I think every era has had their chal­lenges but I think our chal­lenges to­day are of course very dif­fer­ent. Tech­nol­o­gy has changed the world," says Starke.

But are peo­ple strug­gling more to­day?

"I feel that with­in the last ten or 20 years it is more chal­leng­ing for young peo­ple, be­cause they've had to adapt and ad­just to so many changes. Changes hap­pen so fast. Tech­nol­o­gy is good in some re­spects–how can we live with­out our phones and our e-mail?–but it al­so presents prob­lems. Our young peo­ple have so many choic­es these days it's hard to know what to do. Ca­reer choic­es for ex­am­ple."

And what kind of fam­i­ly is­sues does she deal with?

"Fam­i­lies in cri­sis. Be­cause fam­i­lies are so busy try­ing to earn a liv­ing, it's hard.

"I'm see­ing chal­lenges be­tween cou­ples, af­fect­ed by the econ­o­my, hold­ing on to two jobs. And what hap­pens when cou­ples dis­agree? Fam­i­ly life suf­fers. Fam­i­ly mem­bers go in­to their own rooms to eat.

"Fam­i­lies need to start hav­ing meals to­geth­er! Play board games to­geth­er, have con­ver­sa­tions, go on pic­nics...We need to get back to these things."

If we don't go back to these core be­hav­iours, Starke says, we will end up with chil­dren us­ing tech­nol­o­gy (smart­phones, lap­tops, video games con­soles and iPads) as "sub­sti­tute babysit­ters." Chil­dren will be­come ad­dict­ed to tech­nol­o­gy.

But what about the re­cent de­bate about an­oth­er tra­di­tion­al form of Caribbean par­ent­ing? "Licks" was in the news re­cent­ly: where does Starke sit on the is­sue?

"I'm not go­ing to tell par­ents how to raise their chil­dren," she says.

Then, af­ter a pause, "A lit­tle beat­ing every now and again, I think it's ok. But we have to stay away from the ex­tremes."

I point out that it's il­le­gal in the US, UK and oth­er coun­tries for par­ents to phys­i­cal­ly beat their chil­dren.

"I'm not sure that's the right thing, be­cause it takes away all the pow­er from the par­ent," says Starke. "Chil­dren are now beat­ing and at­tack­ing their par­ents and they know their rights from a very young age."

In the late 1970s Starke was a flight at­ten­dant with BWIA. A job which meant she "wasn't there" for her el­dest child. She ac­knowl­edges that all par­ents make mis­takes and she is no dif­fer­ent.

"But we must learn from our mis­takes. We all think we are ter­ri­ble par­ents un­til we talk to oth­er par­ents and re­alise we all strug­gle at times."

In 1980, she opened Ju­nior­care, a day­care cen­tre for chil­dren aged three months to five-years-old. Fol­low­ing that, and a di­vorce, she spent ten years study­ing in Flori­da, even­tu­al­ly end­ing up with qual­i­fi­ca­tions in psy­chol­o­gy, a mas­ters in coun­selling in ed­u­ca­tion and a doc­tor­ate in adult ed­u­ca­tion or­gan­i­sa­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

Ar­riv­ing back in Trinidad just three months ago she is re­con­nect­ing with for­mer clients, look­ing in­to set­ting up work­shops with em­ploy­ees and su­per­vi­sors of or­gan­i­sa­tions that are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing prob­lems. And, gen­er­al­ly, she is lov­ing be­ing back in the coun­try she loves.

"I am a Trinida­di­an," she says. "I owe who I am to my ex­pe­ri­ence grow­ing up in Trinidad. It's on­ly spir­i­tu­al­ly fit­ting that I give back to it here."

�2 Mon­i­ca Starke's col­umn, The Starke Re­al­i­ty be­gins on Ju­ly 2 and will con­tin­ue every Wednes­day.