To be or Not to be

My mother always tells me what she felt was wrong in her upbringing and she did her best to avoid those mistakes that her mother made and also ask me not to repeat that mistake.  Kind of for me to learn from her mistakes so to speak.  This is all very well, but what about those who do not have a parent to model on?

I believe that parents or the child’s immediate family (grandparents, siblings and those who live with the child) play a major role in children’s upbringing; other family members (the extended family) and teachers come at a close second.

I think it would be good to have a system whereby, whosoever wants to become a parent; they need to sit an exam – kind of like the NCEA – different unit standards for the candidate parent to achieve - before they can embark on the parenthood journey!!

REFERENCES:

Binning, E. (2010, April 15). Working mums strike back.  nzherald.co.nz.  Retrieved on April 30, 2010 from 

Working mums strike back - National - NZ Herald News

           

Collins, S. (2010, April 26). Group looks at support centre for teen parents. nzherald.co.nz.  Retrieved on April 30, 2010 from 

Group looks at support centre for teen parents - National - NZ Herald News

           

Grunwell, R. (2010, March 21). Dads Happy to stay home.  nzherald.co.nz.  Retrieved on May 1, 2010 from 

Dads happy to stay home - National - NZ Herald News

           

May, A. (2010). 8 Discipline MIsteakes Parents Make. Behavior. Parenting.com.  Retrieved on April 20, 2010 from 

8 Discipline Mistakes Parents Make - Parenting.com (Page 3)

           

Misa, T. (2010, April 19). Looking after the kids is a proper job too.  nzherald.co.nz. Retrieved on April 30, 2010 from 

Tapu Misa: Looking after the kids is a proper job too - National - NZ Herald News

            

The Parents' Assistants or The Assistant Parent

There is also the extended family scenario; the Asian and the indigenous people group; their society model includes immediate family as well as the extended family, i.e. grandparents; uncles and aunties; cousins etc of whom some play a major part in the raising of children.

In Asia; (i.e. China, Philippines, Thailand, Korea etc), home help are quite common, this could be in the form of members of the extended family – grandparents, unmarried aunties or paid domestic helpers (house maids).  This means parents will be busy working to make money to pay for these kinds of help at home!  (Even grandparents needed to be paid pocket money, so why not get them to look after the kids as well?  Ha ha.)

I guess us Asians are more of the ‘face’ culture.  We were bought up with the understanding that our parents will not shame us and therefore we do not bring shame to the family; whereas, other culture are a bit more casual about these sort of thinking.  Not only do we ‘not to’ bring shame to the family, we are supposed to bring ‘face’ to the family – the positive stuff – so children are to do better than their parents.

How to be a good parent?

After watching the clip, do you agree that Asians make better parents??

My friends who are westerners often said, “Asian kids excel in school because they have a more straight upbringing and therefore they are more studious then ours.”  I agreed but up to a point.  

Moms Vs Dads

And then there are people who say one gender is better at parenting than the other!  May be that’s the reason more and more single celebrity becoming solo parent.

By default, mothers are generally viewed as the “Parent” because she’s the one with the child since birth and look after the child’s every need (at least for the initial stage – the first few days or even months!)  One then would have thought ‘mothers’ should be held in high esteem!  But no, oh no.  A stay home mom is viewed as a non-careered person; they can’t compete with their counterpart – the working mom!  More often than not, the stay-home moms are being discriminated upon!

And what about the stay home dad?  What is wrong with husbands that stay at home and look after the children and the mothers ‘bring home the bacon’?  I know of at least a handful of stay-home dads that did a very good job at raising children.  Not only can they cook, they can even iron the most difficult dress for their wife and daughters!  But how much are they being value in our society?

Where parenthood is concern, there are lots of support group for the female parent but for the male parent, there doesn’t seem to be many.

The young and not so young Mum & dad

Teenagers who find themselves became a parent (willingly or unwillingly) need a lot of support.  And these supports are obviously should be established and provided by the government or the relevant "organizations".  This is well and good, but what about the normal 'adult' parents, what are the support that's available for them?  How do they know if they are doing a good job at parenting or not?

The meaning of Mum & Dad

How and where do we learn to be 'parents'?

In general, a ‘person’ would grow from babyhood to childhood; to adolescence; to adulthood; to middle age; to retirement age and then - death!  (Of course, there are exceptional cases, But that's another blog altogether!)

And somewhere between adolescence and middle age; some of them have the phrase of parenthood – meaning they make ‘new’ human, whether they are ready or not!

Throughout the growing period, human is doing some kind of learning, i.e. early childhood education; schooling – primary; middle and high; college; university; vocational training etc. For some, there’re the further education; the Masters, the PhDs; the list goes on. But where’s the “learning” for parenthood?

Some people say they modelled on their parents or other parental figures; others say they learn by trails and errors!