Good Day Family. As I look around the country and try to find solutions to our problems I realised that I am part of the problem. I am 46 years old now and there are many people my age whose children are between 16 and 30. This age group seems to the problem. So in reality, the people who raised these kids are partly, largely, to blame. More on this after the top 20.

Finally improving to # 1 is Hello, Good Morning by Diddy. Jumping to #2 is I Like It by Enrique Iglesias featuring Pitbull. Sweet track. Up to #3 is Teenage Dream by Katy Perry. Up to #4 is Just The Way You Are by Bruno Mars. Still climbing and up to #5 is DJ Got Us Falling In Love by Usher featuring Pitbull. This is a really cute and catchy dance/pop track. Good for Usher – spreading his wings into dance/pop music. Slipping to #6 is Ride by Ciara featuring Ludacris.

Improving to #7 is Only Girl In The World by Rihanna. I really like this one too. It is pop/dance but it works and fills dance floors. Once a DJ always a DJ: DJs like songs that fill dance floors. Tumbling to # 8 is Deuces by Chris Brown featuring Tyga and Kevin McCall. Slipping to #9 is Dynamite by Taio Cruz. Up to #10 is Just A Dream by Nelly. Tumbling to #11 is I Love The Way You Lie by Eminem featuring Rihanna. Tumbling to #12 is Rockstar 10, another hit by Rihanna. On the way up to #13 is Bottoms Up by Trey Songz featuring Nicki Minaj. Soaring to #14 is To Paris with Love by the ageless and still gorgeous diva Donna Summer. Up to #15 is Can't Be Friends by Trey Songz, a former essential new track. Improving to #16 is Holding You Down by Jazmine Sullivan. Up to #17 is Dirty Picture by Taio Cruz featuring Ke$ha. Ke$ha's other single We R Who We R improves to #18.

Now this week's essential new tune. In at #19 is Champagne Life by Neo. This cat writes some absolutely beautiful songs. This is one smooth R&B jam. You just gotta hear it – it's all over the radio these days. I'm also told it has been kicking at the newly renovated, recently reopened, new and improved Café Cairo; which is now one of the hottest nightspots in Bermuda. Have to go check it out.

The other new track for this week; in at #20, is another dance track, Like a G6 by Far*East Movement Featuring Cataracs & Dev.

Now back to this week's word – who is responsible for the mess we are in with the current generation of young people. I ran into a young person the other day who just couldn't get the concept of working hard, sacrificing, earning things the good old-fashioned way. They wanted success now, without having to work for it. They wanted it given to them and they wanted it now.

Suddenly I realised that my generation and the generation just older than us is responsible for raising the current crop of 16-30 year olds. So I told this young person that I owed them an apology. The youngster was incredulous wondering where this old fogey was going with his apology which they had never previously heard from anyone older than them.

I said, "Your parents' generation and my generation have failed you and your generation. We have failed to instil in you the work ethic of our parents and grandparents, the knowledge that the easy way out is not the right way. We have made you all material boys and girls who only want bling but don't want to work for it. We have spoiled you all and raised a generation of lazy, selfish, poor decision makers, who don't work hard, have a poor work ethic, can't make time, call in sick all the time and whenever they feel like it, you want the easy way out, don't want to earn anything, want to take things from other people who earned it the hard way; and they want immediate gratification; without the hard work and/or sacrifice".

This individual sat before me in stunned silence. Never before having heard an older person apologise and never having heard the error of the majority of his generation's ways articulated in this manner or from this perspective.

But if we are honest this is true. We have failed our kids. We have taken the easy way out. We have expected the government and the schools to fix our kids. We have made them latch-key kids. We have let MTV, BET, VH1, pop culture, rap music, dancehall music and anything or anybody but us raise our kids! Yes! We have! We have worked three or four jobs to pay for more trips to New Jersey to buy more stuff for them; instead of doing without stuff and material things and spending more quality time with them. We have failed to take our kids to church like our parents and grandparents took us.

We have failed to sit with them to do their homework, check their books, take an interest in and develop a functional understanding of their education. We have failed to support the teachers, principals and the schools. We have refused to find money to send our kids on a school trip to France, Spain, or some distant land; instead of on a family vacation to Disney World or another shopping trip to New York. The benefits of a school trip cannot be understated. You learn so much more than you do by seeing Mickey Mouse or by visiting shopping malls or outlet malls, where all you do is buy more stuff.

Then there's the people who would spend money on weed, drugs, alcohol, several pairs of sneakers or some other unnecessary items but to spend money on their childrens' education. What living donkeys those people are! One of the best gifts a parent can give a child is a good education. It's like the adage that says "If you give a person a fish, you feed them for a day; but if you teach them how to fish; you feed them for the rest of their life". We need to stop giving our kids fish and instead teach them how to fish. Many of us thought that the best way to raise our kids was to give them all the things we wanted as kids. WRONG ANSWER!

The best way to raise kids is to spend as much time with them as possible; try everything to stay together with their other parent; be involved in every aspect of their life; give them the best and most education your money can buy; support the school, teachers, and all initiatives of their school; get to know their friends and more importantly their friends' parents; take them to church and teach them the way of God; be a good example to them of the person that you would like for them to become; pray for them every day; and lastly, ask God to help you and teach you how to be the best parent you can be.

But all is not lost. We can save this lost generation of 16-30 year olds. It is never too late. We just have to start by acknowledging where we went wrong; admitting to them that we failed them; and asking them to work with us to help us right the wrong in the way we raised them and eventually we will produce good, law-abiding, positive contributors to society; instead of the consumers and menaces to society that make up this age group.

It can be done. Yes, we can. Here's to fixing the current generation and getting it right with the next one. We have to do better with the next generation. Peace ... DJLT.