Parenting Woes

I honestly cannot understand how parents in the old days had broods of children and still managed to keep their sanity. It was not uncommon in my parents' generation to see families with even up to ten children, and raising them all seemed to be a cake walk for the parents in those families. In my family, there were four of us, and our parents did a superlative job of raising us, I must admit. I don't recall impossible situations with children in my family or my extended family or in those of my neighbors'. The parents I knew had everything quite under control and knew what exactly to do to defuse volatile situations in the home-front, the primary strategy of them all being " Do what I say and don't question me or talk back ... I know what is right for you!" And the children then seemed to take that in stride, but not so these days!

Most families these days have no more than two children, and parents seem to be raising self-centred narcissists who think the world owes them, that they are always right, and that the parents don't know anything at all. Hmmm ... quite a sea change from a generation ago, I would say! And then when these children hit their teenage years, they morph into strangers and monsters by turns, with whom communication becomes next to impossible. Interestingly, during one of our lunchtime chats, a friend of mine told how her teenage son would just grunt with nary a word by way of communication all through his teenage years, and would do just what he pleased in open defiance of his parents, but how once he passed those turbulent years, the son she had known originally as a sweet little boy, reemerged. "So there is hope, after all!" were her words, as those of us who had teenage children chuckled nervously.

Added to the woes of parents these days is not knowing how to keep up with their super smart children with their incredible exposure to a wealth of knowledge and limitless opportunities. Children nowadays know ten times more than what their parents did at the same age, so the onus rests on parents to do a quick sprint to catch up with them. Children also need a very good reason to do what the parent asks them to do, and the "because-I-told-you-so" ploy that parents used to unilaterally employ before happens to be just a dud these days. And then again, the parent has to navigate the minefield of their children's teen years (throw in alcohol, drugs, boyfriends/girlfriends, sex, etc., here) and be a friend to them, which is a very difficult thing to do. Keeping one's sanity as a parent, considering all of the above, is doubtful, and if a parent sails through without having to cheerfully wring his or her child's neck, then he or she definitely deserves a gold medal, to say the least! And this comes from a mother who's raising an almost-to-be-16, mercurial, bright and brilliant child!!! :)