PARENTING styles differ and are usually dependant on personality and circumstances.
And when it comes to the well-being and safety of her children, Cindy-Ann Lewis-Cuffy loves giving ultimatums, to her children and even the highest of authorities.
Lewis-Cuffy is the mother of three – Nefertiti, Naomi and Akhenaton “Yung Bredda” Lewis. She said she chose their names long before she even had children; at a time she was researching the origin of black people.
“I ended up researching Egypt and came across Nefertiti and fell in love with the name. It means ‘the beautiful one has come,’ so when I had my first daughter I named her Nefertiti.
“Nefertiti’s husband was Akhenaten, so obviously when I had a son I named him Akhenaton.”
She told WMN raising her children was no easy feat, and she especially has had to stand in the gap for her only son on many occasions.
“Raising Kenny was a little tough,” for a number of reasons.
“When he was 15 days old he got his first asthma attack,” the recollection of it momentarily displayed on her face.
“I didn’t know what it was. I was bathing him and he started to turn blue, so I wrapped him in a towel and ran to his aunt’s house with him. She wasn’t living far away.”
Every two weeks after that, she would find herself at the hospital with him, and that went on until her was a year old.
“I remember he spent two weeks in Mt Hope (hospital) and I took him home. He had just started to walk and he fell down. I picked him up, put him on my bed and I knelt next to him and said, ‘Father, you gave me one son and I love him. But I can’t watch him suffer.’ I gave God an ultimatum. ‘Is either you take him; I know I will feel the pain and grieve. But I’d rather you take him and eventually my heart will heal, than you have him suffering. If you don’t take him, heal him! From that day, I wouldn’t say the asthma stopped, but the attacks were fewer.”
Another serious ultimatum would come later in her son’s life, this time for “the bad influences” that tried to take control of him in their Sea Lots community.
[caption id="attachment_1154520" align="alignnone" width="768"] Cindy-Ann Lewis-Cuffy with her son Akhenaton “Yung Bredda” Lewis. -[/caption]
“I told them, ‘You want him? You can have him, but you have to kill me first.’ I wasn’t going to let him go. I’d give my life for him.
“I remember many times when he was younger I would wake up at all hours of the morning and he wouldn’t be home.
“I went out in the streets called out ‘Papito’ at every corner. That’s what I used to call him,” she chuckled uncontrollably at the memory.
Lewis-Cuffy is a practising Spiritual Baptist and a member of the The New Jerusalem Spiritual Baptist Church in Sea Lots, and she brought up her children to revere God. So when her son, also known as the King of Steam, began producing “zess” music, she became troubled.
“I didn’t like his music eh; I found it was too vulgar.
“I don’t know if it’s because of the generation, but I don’t like it.
“If you give me soca; yes! I love it,” she leaned b
