“I love you, Mom.”
Starting with these simple words, dozens of boys from John Gray and Clifton Hunter High Schools and Hope Academy told their mothers they loved them, and why, and handed them a red rose in an emotional evening at the annual Boyz2Men dinner at The Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cayman, on Saturday.
One boy told his mother she’d literally saved his life. Another said his mom had been both father and mother to him throughout his life, while another thanked his mother for always putting food on the table even in tough times. One young man acknowledged that even though he had disappointed her time and again, his mother was always there for him.
Some told of fighting with their mothers and causing them constant stress, others of the help they’d received from their moms with studying, and some thanked their mothers for strengthening their relationship with God.
A few of the boys choked up as they tried to express themselves, frozen with nerves or shyness. Others eloquently poured their hearts out, while a few of the young men opted for humour and self deprecation.
All finished their long or short avowals of love and support for their moms with a hug. Later, the boys, all dressed in suits and ties, danced with their mothers to the accompaniment of ‘Lean on Me’.
Teenage boys are not particularly known for being able to express themselves emotionally, and this evening, titled ‘Fine Dining with Mom’, was a testament to the work done by Boyz2Men in training male students in this programme on social etiquette, which in turn builds confidence, emotional intelligence and morals of the participants.
John Gray’s principal, Jonathan Clark, in opening remarks, had high praise for the programme.
“Sometimes, we as human beings are way too quick to judge other people’s journeys,” he said. “We look at somebody and often read that book by its cover.
“You might see a young man struggling to focus in class, you might see somebody that is maybe getting in trouble out of school, you may see somebody that maybe has forgotten what it’s like to feel the love in a family.
“Every single young man who is on that journey has a story behind them, and that story doesn’t have to be the final story for them.”
Pointing to some of the community work the Boyz 2 Men students carry out, John Gray principal Clark said, “Every year, this programme makes young men into just the most fantastic people in the Cayman Islands.”
He added that the programme “gets bigger and bigger and bigger. It’s there for the good times and for the bad times.”
“Gentlemen, we are so, so proud of you,” he said. “Things you learn in this programme make you a rounded individual, somebody that everyone in the Cayman Islands can be proud of.”
‘Turning boys into gentlemen’
Boyz2Men is a high-school based mentorship programme, with an aim to provide at-risk young men with the life skills and support they need for a successful future.
Its motto is ‘Turning boys into gentlemen’.
Established by Christopher Murray in 2009, Boyz2Men started with three students at John Gray High School, and has grown exponentially to 131 students across four schools since then. Clifton Hunter, Hope Academy and Layman E. Scott High School have joined the programme over the years.
An inspiration
After watching the young men in the audience give their mothers roses, hug them and tell them why they loved them, Premier Wayne Panton, who also spoke at the event, said it had inspired him enormously.
He said, while he tells his own mother he loves her all the time, he was reminded that he needed to tell her why, and said he planned to do so that evening.
Looking around the ballroom at The Ritz-Carlton, the premier said each year, more and more students and their mothers are in attendance, and he remembered others who had been in that room in earlier years.
“I’ve watched them grow up, watched them get married… What that tells me is that this organisation is bringing positive generational change to our society,” he said.
Keynote speaker Collin Anglin, 2010 Young Caymanian Leadership Award recipient and the government’s former director of sports, spoke of an early brush with the law after falling in with a group of boys who broke into a store. After his mother picked him up from the police station, “she could not even look at me that day”, he said.
That led to him deciding he would never disappoint his mother so badly as he had that day, and also made him determined that “no one was going to jeopardise my future again”.
He urged the young men in the room not to keep company with people who would make their “talent to go waste”.
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