Parenting Because Parenting Is so Very Personal,

¶ … Parenting

Because parenting is so very personal, I approached this essay with a lot of curiosity, and even some amount of concern over what the literature on the subject might reveal. I expected to find a number of high-minded platitudes and very little practical advice that would be useful in the day-to-day trenches of the parenting wars. I'm pleased to say how wrong I was.

The first thing I noticed was that in article after I article, they were filled with heartwarming supportive advice, almost all dos and almost no don'ts. The next thing I noticed was that all the articles acknowledged that these are very trying times in which to be a parent. The message was uniformly the same: expect to make some mistakes but be encouraged that it's well within one's reach to be a good parent.

Seth Mullins (2008) makes the point that in today's world, we are bombarded with advice from "experts" that not only undermines our confidence as parents, but inadvertently sets up the expectation that we should strive to be perfect at the parenting job. Whether we have firm convictions about doing the opposite of everything that our parents did, or whether we believe their tried and true approaches work best, what is most important is that our love and compassion for our children be the guiding force that informs our decisions.

Much of the confusion surrounding any parenting discussion results from the rapid changes our society has been going through. We have dropped a lot of old ideas about what the roles of men and women should be, but we are not always able to replace the models that we discarded with new ones. Consequently we are embarking on new territory in some ways as we wade deeper into an age of experimentation. Much of the time we are working with both helpful and not-so-helpful input from other parents, family, friends, and teachers who are in the same rocking boat that we are. Still, shredding the old blueprints for how mothers and fathers should raise their children can be seen as a fruitful phase in humanity's growth. We have an opportunity to try new methods that could potentially work better than those that previous generations have used. This journey into unknown territory will work better for us though if we can let go the expectation that we be completely enlightened parents. As we celebrate our young ones making their first steps, why not celebrate our own? (Mullins, 2008).

One area of agreement in almost all of the parenting literature concerns common parenting challenges, such as discipline and quality time and drug use. Experts don't agree on the solutions, but parents are concerned over similar issues. Ways to teach discipline, even the idea of discipline itself, have changed significantly over the years. Parents are frequently split over ways to deal with bad behavior. Spending quality time with children has become an increasingly sensitive issue given the career demands made of one or both parents. And with the increase in prescription drugs and increasingly controversial message in the media, more children are inclined to experiment. Given that issues concerning parenting techniques can lead to friction between both parents, or between single parents and extended family members, it is best to discuss potential issues beforehand (Better Parenting, 2010).

As television, the Internet, and every other mode of mass communication have penetrated nearly every household, we face mounting pressure to change traditional parental styles. Every parent tries to teach the child good values, but the power and influence of the media in our day-to-day lives makes the process of teaching our children morals a big struggle for parents (Gaikwad, 2011).

The modern world pressures children to be their best at whatever they are doing or involved with. The message is clear: if you aren't the best, you've lost out on life already. We as parents have to counter this pressure. Slowing down and allowing your child to cope with extra-curricular activities is a crucial part of a child's normal development, just as is developing the ability to accept loss and disappointment (Gaikwad, 2011).