DIOCESAN NEWS
06/25/10
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Nephews show uncle what it means to 'parent’
By Fabvienen Taylor
JACKSON — Cassio Batteast, 30, has been a father for 12 years, but only in the the last two years has he been a parent.
He has a 12-year-old daughter who lives in Oxford with her mother.
“But sending money and spending holidays and weekends together with her is easy. It is very different when you have to take care of a child every day; to make sure that child has something nutritious to eat; to make sure that child gets to school on time every day; and to make sure homework is done.”
Batteast’s eyes were opened to that reality two years ago when he went from living a single life, except when his daughter was visiting him, to being a full-time parent for not one, but both of his sister’s young boys.
“It has shown me it is really easy to call yourself a parent, but if you are not there every day for your child, you are not really parenting,” said Batteast, a case manager with the Unaccompanied Refugee Minors (URM) program.
“My sister has been in the Army 13 years so my nephews grew up moving from place to place with her. The first two times my sister was deployed, to Iraq and later to Afghanistan, her two young sons went to live with my mother in Charleston until my sister returned to the United States.
“But when she was about to be deployed to Iraq again, my mother was not up to keeping the boys. She was working and the boys were older and a little too rambunctious for her,” Batteast said.
He offered to bring them to Jackson to live with him until his sister returned.
“They started living with me June 13, 2008,” Batteast said. The boys, 12-year-old Malik and 10-year-old Laquarious Roberson, recently left Jackson to spend the summer with their mother in Savannah, Ga. She returned from Iraq last year in August 2009.
The boys will return to live with Batteast at the end of the summer to attend the same schools for a couple of years.
Batteast and his sister, who expects to be stationed elsewhere soon, decided it would be best for them to stay in their present schools until they are ready to move on to the upper grades.
“Keeping my nephews gave me the opportunity to help my sister when she needed me. And it has given me the opportunity to build up these two young men by taking care of them 24 hours a day in my home,” Batteast said.
“I really understand what single mothers go through now. It has shown me all the things my daughter’s mother has to do on a daily basis.”
While his nephews are away, Batteast will get to spend more time socializing with his friends, which came to a halt when his nephews moved in.
 He also hopes to get in a little time traveling.
“When the boys are with me they are my priority so any socializing is done with them — playing video games, going to the movies and to museums. My older nephew and I like basketball. The younger one is into soccer. Both are artistic so I encourage them in that too,” he said.
Batteast also learned a lot about doing homework when his nephews were in school.
“I realized it takes a lot of time to help them with their work, to help educate them the way they need to be educated,” he said. People give teachers a bad rap, he said, but they have had some wonderful teachers.
“And their teachers know they can call me and I will come right away to their classroom if needed.”
Batteast, who received a bachelor’s degree in Child Development from Tougaloo College, taught for a year before moving on to work with the Salvation Army’s long-term care program after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
From there he went to Catholic Charities to work in their long-term-care program before moving on to URM.
Batteast is strongly interested in gaining more experience and knowledge in working with and mentoring young men.
“I feel that is my God-given purpose. Keeping my nephews has helped me to see where the dynamics of some programs in the areas of mental health for children, parenting, and mentoring need to be changed. I am interesting in developing my ideas into some working programs,” he said.
“Really, keeping my nephews, helping to develop their skills, and building them into strong young men has been a blessing to me.
“It has made me a more rounded parent and I like going on speaking engagements where I can talk with noncustodial fathers and single mothers about the things I have learned,” Batteast said.
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