Why does everyone hate how everyone else parents?
Friend of mine asked me to plug a post on her Livejournal with a thoughtful question regarding parenting styles:
Everyone knows how to parent except you
Personally, as I'm not a parent, I am probably ill qualified to offer an opinion. But that's never stopped me before.
I think people are basically insecure about how "well" they're raising their kids. People want it all laid out in a book or a video or a class or something easy like that. Being a parent is hard. It involves all kinds of decisions that aren't black or white, but need to be one particular shade of gray. What works for one kid doesn't work for another. What some parents consider to be important is seen as completely irrelevant by others. And, worst of all, the way some parents choose to raise their kids is frequently attacked as "immoral" or "indulgent" or "irresponsible" simply because they're being raised with a different set of values or beliefs than the observer.
I want to be a father someday. Recently a story I saw on the news hit home; it was basically an analysis of birth rates as they relate to political alignment. What it boils down to, is that conservatives have more kids than liberals. (I'm not going to get into why I think that is, but rest assured the word "hypocritical" is probably involved somewhere along the line.) This made me reflect on the fact that my wife and I aren't getting any younger, and we've always talked about having at least one child, possibly two. It's my hope that I can raise children to be critical thinkers, not necessarily raise them to believe precisely what I do. (You don't have to be a parent to know that trying to force your beliefs on your kid only makes them want to believe the exact opposite anyway.) There comes a point when your kids are going to make decisions for themselves, and IMHO the best thing you can do is to give them the right tools to make the right decision for themselves.
But that's hard. There isn't a list of things you can check off after you teach your kids each one. It requires thought and consistency. (It's also my opinion that kids need boundaries, but also need to know WHY those boundaries are there, even if the reason is "Because I'm your father, and I have more experience than you do.")
Go read the post. Comments are requested.
Everyone knows how to parent except you
Personally, as I'm not a parent, I am probably ill qualified to offer an opinion. But that's never stopped me before.
I think people are basically insecure about how "well" they're raising their kids. People want it all laid out in a book or a video or a class or something easy like that. Being a parent is hard. It involves all kinds of decisions that aren't black or white, but need to be one particular shade of gray. What works for one kid doesn't work for another. What some parents consider to be important is seen as completely irrelevant by others. And, worst of all, the way some parents choose to raise their kids is frequently attacked as "immoral" or "indulgent" or "irresponsible" simply because they're being raised with a different set of values or beliefs than the observer.
I want to be a father someday. Recently a story I saw on the news hit home; it was basically an analysis of birth rates as they relate to political alignment. What it boils down to, is that conservatives have more kids than liberals. (I'm not going to get into why I think that is, but rest assured the word "hypocritical" is probably involved somewhere along the line.) This made me reflect on the fact that my wife and I aren't getting any younger, and we've always talked about having at least one child, possibly two. It's my hope that I can raise children to be critical thinkers, not necessarily raise them to believe precisely what I do. (You don't have to be a parent to know that trying to force your beliefs on your kid only makes them want to believe the exact opposite anyway.) There comes a point when your kids are going to make decisions for themselves, and IMHO the best thing you can do is to give them the right tools to make the right decision for themselves.
But that's hard. There isn't a list of things you can check off after you teach your kids each one. It requires thought and consistency. (It's also my opinion that kids need boundaries, but also need to know WHY those boundaries are there, even if the reason is "Because I'm your father, and I have more experience than you do.")
Go read the post. Comments are requested.
posted by Zach Burnham at 10:37 PM (click for permalink)
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home