English - American Parenting - Essay Example

Parenting techniques and practices vary on the basis of religion, economy, culture, geography and technology. There are many factors that shape the parenting practices of a particular society. Parenting must be given an absolute meaning and purpose because children are the future of this world and their behavior should reflect their abilities to create a better world. Today, getting married and having children is nothing more than a custom which is not the true purpose of having a family. Parents must first understand why having children is important to them and whether they will be able to raise their children well.

American way of parenting has been criticized time and again and an average individual might even agree to this criticism since the exposure of American family life that this individual may have had would point to very unhealthy and poor parenting practices. That is why shopping and junk food have become the symbols of western teenage life. Symbols represent a lot of values for families. For Chua, a violin represented eastern family values. “In our household, the violin had become a symbol.

For me it symbolized excellence, refinement and depth – the opposite of shopping malls, mega-sized Cokes, teenage clothes and crass consumerism.” (Chua 207) Human beings evolve to survive. Their lifestyles are in a state of constant flux. Parents are familiar with their drawbacks and they wish to see such drawbacks absent in their children however, what they need to understand is how these drawbacks originated within them in the first place. Understanding the child’s psychology is crucial to practice ideal parenting.

Elinor Ochs conducted a study in which she observed the life of thirty two middle-class families of Los Angeles. Her findings show that children of the subject families did not perform household obligations on a regular basis unless instructed otherwise. “In one fairly typical encounter, a father asked his eight-year-old son five times to please go take a bath or a shower. After the fifth plea went unheeded, the father picked the boy up and carried him into the bathroom. A few minutes later, the kid, still unwashed, wandered into another room to play a video game” (Kolbert, 2012).

In another encounter an eight year old girl ordered her father to bring her silverware even though she knew exactly where the silverware was kept. Another boy named Ben could not put his sneakers on because their laces were ties and he had to ask for his father’s help since he did not know how to untie them. Such behavior of children is fairly common among the American families. “According to one poll, commissioned by Time and CNN, two-thirds of American parents think that their children are spoiled” (Kolbert, 2012).

This behavior of children has certain number of reasons attached to it; poor parenting methods being the primary one. It is not just the fact that the American children have been bombarded with variety of material objects such as toys, clothes, video games, cell phones, laptops, iPads, IPhones, computer, television, PlayStation and cameras to fill their lives with but also the fact that parents have lost authority over their children. Nowadays parents require their children’