Q: As a teacher in an elementary school, I would like to comment about the parents I see working with the children attending my classes. I think that most of those parents deserve a great big hug to reward them for being so attentive and caring for their children.
We hear so much these days about how parents need to be more in charge of their kids, how they spend far too much money on toys and new clothes for Christmas time and birthdays and how they are not as capable as parents were in the old days.
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I beg to differ. I think that the parents I see coming in my classroom when we have special occasions are every bit as capable as their parents.
In fact, given computers, new teaching technologies and the ever present threat of sexual predators lurking in the community, I would say parents of today’s kids are more alert and aware than were those critical parents who raised them.
Isn’t it about time we celebrated the good work moms and dads are doing, and if they aren’t perfect, perhaps we could remember that none of us are perfect. Let’s face it: they are doing a good job.
A: I think that parents of all eras have had their special challenges that made raising children difficult.
Let’s look at the parents in today’s home. Chances are one in two that the parents in the home are not both the natural parents of the children. The divorce-separation rate is high, and with that comes unusual configurations about whose kids are whose.
There may be his, hers and ours in families, and yet everyone is trying their best to make something of a family for each of the children.
And let’s not forget that other natural parent. Weekend dads or weekend moms are spending whatever time they can with children who don’t live in the same house that they do. It is tough, but they do it with the same conviction they had when the family was together under one roof.
Whatever the arrangements, the common ground for many families is that they don’t have the support that they once did.
Grandparents were the great advisers not that long ago, supporting moms and dads when they struggled to properly raise their children. But parents and grandparents were generally within travelling distances from each other. Sometimes they were even in the same farmyard, perhaps both living in houses on the home quarter.
That close proximity is a rarity in today’s world. People at times are living hundreds if not thousands of kilometres away. The parents can’t pop over to Granny’s house when they are frustrated beyond tears and need simply to have a good cry. The extended family, the natural support system built into family structure, is not there.
Similar losses of support can be found within the community.
Go to almost any school today and just before the bell rings to end the day you will see countless numbers of moms and dads gathering to take their children home. The family is not just alone, without community support, but it is also vulnerable to the community, to the fear of sexual predators, to the caution that needs to be exercised crossing busy streets and roadways and to the desperate isolation children fear when dealing with playground bullies and other interpersonal abusers.
Moms and dads make their children safe by being there for them. The community is simply not protecting children as it once did.
So, having said all of that, I would like to thank you for your letter.
Of course our parents are not perfect. Their kids spend way too much time on computer games, are not as polite as kids once were and often eat too much junk food.
But overall, this generation will somehow see its way through the challenges, and despite what happens in the future, children these days, as did children in days of yore, can count on Mom and Dad being there for them.
Maybe all of us should take a moment to appreciate what parents do rather than commenting on what they do not do.
