Many of Bermuda’s fathers are nothing more than sperm donors while mothers are too busy partying or planning shopping trips.This is the view of Commissioner of Corrections Edward Lamb who says “tuned-out parents” only have themselves to blame for the Island’s worsening gun violence.Mr Lamb pointed the finger at men who have children “all over the place” and women who only take an interest in their child’s school when it is sports day.He said the result was a generation of undisciplined children who were at risk of turning to crime as they had grown up without any positive role models.Mr Lamb gave his no holds barred speech during a discussion on the issues facing Bermuda’s men at Marsden First United Methodist Church in Smith’s. The topic of last night’s forum was simply: ‘What went wrong?’Mr Lamb said: “The problem is we have too many tuned-out parents in this country. They are too busy living for themselves.“Parents are too busy playing on their BlackBerries. They need to put the gadgets down.“We have to spend time with children. We have to give them time not money.”Mr Lamb said the Island had “too many sperm donors” as young men became dads but didn’t act like fathers.He said: “How many men have got children all over the place? They are not investing themselves in their lives. These children are having to grow up without a father or a strong man in their life.“We have a fatherless child problem in my country and I place it straight at the feet of our men and I make no apology in saying that.”Mr Lamb then turned his attention to women, saying mothers could repeatedly be heard saying “the ‘That’s not my boy’ thing.”He joked: “Denial is not just a river in Egypt. There are lots of moms in denial in Bermuda.“They are sitting in bars and planning their next shopping trips and they don’t even know what their children are doing at school.“We have to start singing another song. We have to stop this ‘my boy doesn’t want to go to school or go to work, he just wants to stay home all day smoking weed.’“Whatever happened to the day you stop school being the day you start work?”Mr Lamb gave a passionate speech saying he cared deeply about his country and his people, especially young people. He told the crowd of about 50 people, which included Public Works Minister Derrick Burgess: “I don’t do politically correct, I do live and direct.”He said: “We have neglected to raise our children in a Godly fashion. We have neglected to be fathers and grandfathers. We have neglected to look out for each other’s children and we have neglected to discipline our children.”Mr Lamb said too many of the Island’s young men “had never stepped foot in a church before.” He says countless men only see the inside of churches for weddings or funerals.Mr Lamb said families “had left God out the picture” and children were growing up without knowing how to respect adults and be humble.Mr Lamb said it was crucial for families to sit down for evening meals together so that “kids were properly trained.”He said he found himself having to continually teach young men “the basics” like how to properly use a knife and fork “without maiming their food.”He said some Bermudian men ate like they were “concrete mixers” and he had to explain they “could talk or chew, not both at the same time.”He said: “Families need to sit down every evening and have a meal. That means putting the BlackBerries and gadgets down.“Nothing should interrupt the family meal each night. It’s not just about eating, it’s about learning manners and the art of communication.”Mr Lamb also hit out at parents who failed to discipline their children, leaving it to churches, schools and even the prisons “to pick up the pieces.”He said there was “absolutely no reason” why a man in his 20s should have no respect for others “but it happens all the time.”Mr Lamb also highlighted the “use of profanities up and down Bermuda’s highways.” He said he remembered a time when women never cursed, but he now regularly receives offensive phone calls from the mothers and grannies of prisoners. They tell him, with several expletives thrown in: “The prisoners have to have respect for you, but I don’t have to respect you.”Mr Lamb said he had also recently been horrified to hear a nine-year-old schoolboy say, “shut up, woman” to his Granny.Mr Lamb said, “enough is enough” when it comes to continually saying the African proverb that ‘it takes a village to raise a child.’ He said: “Let’s stop talking and actually do it.”He said: “We need to become mentors and role-models, we are all part of the solution. I’m not just talking about your own children, we need to look after each other’s children, even the ones you didn’t help to make.“When was the last time you grabbed hold of someone else’s child and told them you cared about them and loved them? Our children need to hear this, they need us.”Charles Clarke, who was a PLP election candidate for Hamilton West, talked about how Bermuda’s families were living below the poverty line and “struggling to survive in their own country.”He said: “We have moms working two jobs and Grannies watching the children, we have become a latchkey society.“We have young males who don’t have positive role models in their life. Some of these young men know they won’t live until they are 30. No one has shown them any love and they know they will die on the streets.”Marsden First United Methodist Church set up its forum so that “a small church in a small community” could be heard.