reevaluate his life has challenged Bermuda's fathers to live up to their responsibilities as full and active caregivers -- especially when it comes to their sons.

"One man can make a difference,'' Mr. Calvin Ming said in a pre-Father's Day speech to members of the Progressive Labour Party yesterday. "If we save our boys, it will be the greatest and most fulfilling task of our lives.'' Mr. Ming, who underwent a heart transplant in the United States last year, said his experience forced him to reexamine the kind of father he had been and the kind of legacy he would want to leave behind in the form of his children.

"Young people are the greatest resource we have in this Country -- much more than natural beauty,'' he said. "(But) what are we (as a society) passing on to the next generation?'' According to Mr. Ming, who was administrator of the Royal Commission into the use of drugs and alcohol and has a strong interest in youth causes, the "fast-food world'' and "easy answer mentality'' to which Bermuda has succumbed has produced a generation of aimless, increasingly destructive young people who have a "drastic need to be entertained.'' This, Mr. Ming surmised, is the result of several factors, including a lack of parental discipline, a materialistic culture, a high rate of mobility and the death of extended families.

"We have to look at redeveloping the extended family network,'' he said. "I don't think I would be the person I am today without my grandparents.'' Of particular importance, in Mr. Ming's view, is the degree to which a child's senses of worth and productivity are developed.

"Children must become participants and not observers in our workaday world,'' he said. "Mealtimes should be discussion times. Learning and handicraft should be going on.'' Recalling Hurricane Emily's sweep across the Island in 1987, Mr. Ming said that the age-old notion of family chores, heightened in the hurricane's aftermath, is still one of the best ways of fostering a sense of responsibility.

"Chores are important. If my daughter didn't get up every morning (after the hurricane) and put the water tank on the barbecue, we didn't have water. Back then we knew that working together was important because it was critical to our survival.'' Often, however, too many young people are going through life without ever knowing the feeling of a hard day's work or a job well done, Mr. Ming said.

Likening a parent's role to that of a baton carrier on a relay team, he wondered if mothers and especially fathers are handing the proper values to their children.

"The greatest way to honour others is to first love yourself and then pass it on to your neighbours.'' With regard to Bermuda, which has seen an increase in the amount of youth who become involved with drugs and crime, Mr. Ming isn't so sure. "I look at Bermuda, which has oodles of potential, with mixed emotions,'' he said, adding: "What do you (as parents) want on your epitaph here?''