Challenges of Parenting In The Twenty-First Century - Coursework Example

Challenges of Parenting In The Twenty-First Century Introduction: Procreation and bringing up of offspring is a natural feature of all living beings, human beings included. Therefore there is nothing new in parental support at the time of growth and development of children. In the basic sense we may look upon parenting as the provision of a safe and livable environment along with the basic needs for the growth and development of children. Should we base our concept on just these basic aspects of parenting, then we cannot claim to have progressed any further than our pre-historic ancestors, as far as parenting is concerned. Humanity has progressed, and in the modern world in addition to the provision of basic needs of children, the onus of parenting includes mentally, emotionally and physically preparing the children to face the challenges that the modern world throws at them. Shifting this responsibility to educational institutions that essentially cater to the knowledge and skill requirements in the development of children would leave then deficient in many aspects of development that could come through parenting. This paper evaluates the changes that have occurred in modern society in the twentieth century and the strains and stresses of parenting in the twenty-first century. Traditional Parenting: Within the traditional pattern of undivided families in olden times the parenting roles were clearly defined and even shared by other members of the family, like the grandparents. This was because role defining in old times between family members within a family and between families in societies or communities were clearly defined. Women as such had the role of bearing of children and providing the required parenting during the initial period of the childhood. This role was performed not only by the mother, but also by the other women in the family. During this time the religious and cultural values of the community were given to the child, as well as the expectations of the child fulfilling the ascribed role in the family and the society. Thus early parenting was essentially a function of the women of the household, while the men provided for the families, through the sweat of the brow as the saying goes. The parenting role of the women continued in the case of a female child in preparing them for the responsibilities within the household till the time of marriage and in the household of the husband after marriage. Since the practice was for female children to be married early, it could be safely said that the parenting of the female child, by the mother and other female members went on till marriage after which came the swift transition from child to mother, as the female child took up the child bearing responsibilities and required responsibilities in the house of the husband. The father played hardly any role in the parenting of the female child, as it was believed that there was hardly any contribution that father provided towards the future requirements of the female child, and so there could only be the giving of love and affection from the father to the daughter in the limited span of time available. In the case of the male child the picture was different. As the child progressed into adolescence, so did the role of the father and the other male members of the family in the parenting. This was so that the male child not only developed the required the values attached to the family and society, but also the knowledge and skills required to become a valuable member of the family and society on the designated role. Thus there were two aspects to parenting traditionally and that was a clear differentiation in the parenting of a female and a male child, and that parenting was not performed by the father and mother of the child, but extended to the other members of the undivided family. Another factor that needs to be considered is that there were clear cut roles among the mother and father in the old traditional family. The father was the bread winner, while the mother stayed at home in charge of the domestic affairs. Hence there was a parent available at home to take care of the children, as they grew up. This can be seen in the old tradition of the mother looking after the children at the younger age, and the father’s coming into the picture at the later stage. In any case the kind of life normally led ensured that parents were around most of the time with the children, and that they were able to devote enough time in the parenting of children. This was made possible by the societies being essentially agrarian. (Vinovskis, 1987). Changes to the Traditional Parenting: Industrialization that followed the Renaissance in Europe was to have an impact on family life and parenting. The father as breadwinner of the family started moving away from home for providing a better life to the family. In essence with regard to parenting the role of the father diminished largely with the reduced presence in the family. Industrialization brought with it urbanization, as people were drawn towards centers of industrialization and townships grew around the industries providing livelihood. Many families moved from their agrarian settings to the new societies in built-up areas around industrial centers. The undivided families were breaking up was now far greater and the development of nuclear families meant that greater emphasis was on the parents themselves to provide the necessary parenting for children. Women too started moving out of homes to take up careers and the concept of the sole breadwinner in the family, in the form of the father, was eroding. The era of gender equality had dawned. No longer were women confined to the homes with the sole purpose of attending to domestic functions, conceiving children and bringing them up. Urbanization was also bringing about other social changes in society, as there was greater intermingling of people, exposing children to a variety of influences some good and some bad. Against this background a greater responsibility was placed on educational institutions to provide values and good living habits in support of the required parenting in children in these changed times, in addition to their traditional role of providing knowledge and skills. Changed times and changing society had stared bringing in new challenges to the concept of parenting children. The meaning of fatherhood and motherhood was changing having its impact on parenting (Atkinson & Blackwekder, 1993). Challenges of the Twenty-First Century for Parenting: The first challenge that the twenty-first century throws at parenting is the dramatic shift that has occurred to parenting with growing increased participation of women in the paid labor force. At the start of the latter half of the twentieth century less than half of the married women were a part of the paid labor force. As we moved towards the close of the twentieth century more than three fourths of the married women were part of the paid labor force. This is a marked shift in a short period of time. In the twenty-first century a vast majority of the married are expected to be a part of the paid labor force marking a shift in the culture of parenting. The traditional patriarchal good provider role of the father in the family, is being supplanted by the co-provider model, wherein in both parents need to spend time in providing parenting to the children, to offset detrimental effects on children due to the maternal deprivation faced. The solution lay in shared parenting with the fathers compensating for absence of mothers’, who were at work. The stress on shared parenting in the twenty-first century rises with a very large proportion of married women becoming part of the paid labor force. Shared parenting offers the means out of difficulty of more women entering the paid labor force, but remains a solution only as long as dual parenting is available. In this aspect comes the second challenge that the twenty-first century throws at parenting (Daly, 2004). Marriage is the founding stone of family life, and was built on stability of the marriage. In modern society with liberal perspectives gaining ground stability in marriage has been effected negatively. Marriages are no longer as stable as they were before. According to a World Bank Report in 2005, “lifelong marriage has also become the exception, rather than the rule in many countries”. The report goes on to add that climbing divorce rates puts the survival of more than fifty percent of the marriages at risk (New Bank Report Says World Faces Pensions Crunch-Major Reforms Unavoidable). The traditional nuclear family unit, which was the basis of the industrialized society, has demonstrated a steady decline as a proportion of all households in societies. The rise of single-parent households has risen all around the world, and the United States of America having the highest proportion of single-parent households in the world (Martin & Kats, 2003). Statistics suggest that the state of remaining a single parent is seldom temporary and transitional that leads to remarriage. In the United States of America, one-third of all women, who divorce do not remarry, and two-thirds of the women that remarry divorce again. (Hochschild, 1998). In the twenty-first century the changing pattern in the stability of marriages indicates there will be more children will find themselves in the care of a single parent. In nuclear families the responsibilities in parenting were shared by the father and mother. The benefits of shared parenting that assists in preventing the child from developing bad habits like bunking school and indulgence in drugs or alcohol are likely to be affected. In the changed household environment it is quite likely that more than half the children would be provided parenting by a single parent posing additional responsibilities and challenges for the single parent (Men, women sharing parenting). The two of the foremost issues in single parent parenting is time and the drop in family income. The twenty-first century is the era of globalization and with it is seen the not so happy effect of downsizing and increased responsibilities for employees in organizations, as the organizations strive to become more competitive. The famine of time available to cope with the lack of availability of one parent is enhanced by the responsibilities and time demands of work. Outsourcing of support like baby-sitting or utilizing a crèche is expensive and may be even unaffordable, given the dynamics of economics of in a family that is now deprived of one parent’s income. The combination of drop in parenting time available to the single parent has other issues two. Shared parenting assisted in coping with the probability of developing bad habits like bunking school and indulgence in drugs or alcohol and the like. Single parent parenting would find it difficult to cope with these issues. The additional factor of lack of time due to work front pressures only exacerbate the difficulty in coping with these issues in parenting of the child. In addition to this are the growing influences of societal factors that makes the parenting a more significant issue for the proper growth and development of children. Looking broadly at the three aspects of parenting nurturant care giving, material care giving; and social care giving, single parent parenting run in deficit due to the pressures of time and the likely pressure from drop in financial support of one parent (Bornstein, 1998). Nurturant care giving requires among other factors the responsibility of the wellness the child and prevention of any habits that have an impact on the present and future wellness of the child (Bornstein, 1998). The impact of media and in particular the medium of television on children is well documented. For the television to be a media attuned for the development of the child viewing of the television needs to be a shared experience between the parent and children, so that during the exposure that children are likely to get on aspects of society that require parental guiding, that element of parenting is provided. Besides this interaction during television viewing, the time spent on the medium of television also needs to be regulated, so that other required developmental activities occur that are required for present and continued wellness of children. Shared parenting or single parenting pressed for time will not be able to efficiently manage such aspects, which are so dependent on shared time. Let us take the example of the growing menace of obesity in children. Obesity is an increasing health impediment for the wellness of children in the present and a risk for developing obesity linked diseases and conditions in future. Developing good food habits prevents obesity in children. Educational institutions can provide the knowledge on what makes up good food and good food habits. However, the more significant factor in the development of good food habits is the parental effort and skills in incorporating good food habits in children along with the practice of good food habits within the home environment itself. Development of good food habits like the other healthy life habits is an outcome essentially of interaction between parents and children (Golley, 2007). Material care giving in parenting may be taken as the providing of the physical aspects of children, which includes providing and organizing the physical world of children at home and in the local environments. Material care giving is the easier part of parenting in a materialistic world, as most of the components of material care giving essentially depend on the means to afford them, with lesser compulsions on time and effort in parenting. However in an increasingly single parent oriented household the means to material care may be reduced with only a single parent providing the means (Bornstein, 1998). Social care giving put in a nutshell is the emotional engagement of children through interpersonal exchanges between parents and children in building a meaningful relationship in the family that leads to guidance in the facing the emotional and interpersonal exchanges that the child experiences in the many activities in society. Emotional feelings exist between children and parents, but extending this to be meaningful in the growth and development of children is the essence of social care. Time and effort are the key ingredients in providing social care giving. Devoid of social care giving by parents, children may seek this lacking from outside of the home environment and put themselves at risk of developing meaningless or harmful relationships that hinder their development as useful members of society (Bornstein, 1998). Starting as infants children are dependent on their parents for survival. As they grow and make sense of the world around them, build their initial social bonds and start to express and understand basic human emotions, it is parents who accompany them and guide them through these stages of development. Changes in the households and the pressures of earning the means to proper livelihood in the twenty-first century are putting a strain on the capacities of parents to provide the time needed in accompanying children in through their various developmental stages. It is not that parents in the twenty-first century do not want to be as their parents and their parents before them in parenting. It is just that the times have changed and with that so many things have making it difficult for parents to be as it was before. Hence there is the need to try and assuage the difficulties that the challenges of the twenty-first century have thrown up in parenting of children (Bornstein, 1998). Coping with the Challenges of Parenting in the Twenty-first Century: In the twenty-first century the aspects of paid work and parenting has caused an erosion in the inherited traditions of gender oriented parenting, leading to a greater balance in the parenting practices between the father and the mother. Yet cultural practices restrain the roles, with the fathers expected to perform certain roles and mothers others in parenting. Parenting in the twenty-first century is a shared experience for the couple and so restraint in the form of culture demanded roles have no place in this shared experience. Practicality on the roles performed to suit the changing times is the requirement of the day. Cultural practices have also played a role in the work environment culture that is female oriented towards parenting. To cope with the challenge of paid work and parenting there is the requirement for community to redefine the mothering and fathering roles and the contributions expected from each, so that the necessary changes in the work culture can be brought about to facilitate shared parenting in a true sense. Such a redefinition would remove the hindrances that are placed on shared parenting to the deficit of parenting of children in the twenty-first century (Daly, 2004). Such a redefinition however does not ease the pressure on the growing single parent households in the twenty-first century. The community needs to accept that single parent homes are on the increase and there is a definite need to assist the single parents in their parenting role. In most cases the single parent is the mother with society oriented to providing the mother the greater importance in parenting of the child. Providing the greater importance is not enough, creating the time in the paid work environment of the twenty-first century of the mother is required. This means that work environments need to be made amenable to the time demands of parenting in the case of single parent mothers. This may involve changed working hours for single mothers, so that they came in at times more suited to the parenting needs and worked for durations that assisted them in their parenting requirements. For example single parent mothers could come in earlier during the weekdays and work longer so that they could take Fridays afternoon off and spend a longer weekend with their children without any hassles of work pressure. Many organizations may be willing to invest in such family friendly practices, as it is beneficial to both the employer and the employee. However they may not know the way forward in this new exercise. It is for society as well as groups of single parent mothers to decide on the strategies that need to be used in the workplace environment to ease the pressures on parenting for single parent mothers and encourage organizations to employ them in their workplace environments. Organizations will not be averse to family-friendly working practices, for there are several companies that have increased their productivity because of their family friendly policies in their work environments. They just need to be guided through an area that they have not been through and are unsure about it (Parenting). It is such an investment by society through organizations that would help parents provide the best inheritance to children, which in the words of Kelly, 2003, are “the best inheritance can give to his or her children is a few minutes of his or her time”. Conclusion: The growing presence of married women in the paid workforce has changed the traditional meaning of parenting, where there was greater emphasis on the role of the mother. In addition the increasing instability in marriage is creating a large proportion of single parent households, headed very often by the mother. These two aspects are the greatest challenges of the twenty-first century to parenting. Coping with them is necessary for the proper development of children in these changed environments. Coping strategies in essence need to be worked out by society and the organizations to ensure family friendly practices at the work place that enable parents including single parent mothers the requisite time for parenting requirements of children. Literary References Atkinson, M. P. & Blackwelder, S. P. (1993). Fathering in the 20th Century. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 55. (4): 975-986. Bornstein, H. M. (1998). Refocusing on Parenting. Retrieved January 2, 2007, from Parenthood in America, available at: http://parenthood.library.wisc.edu/Bornstein/Bornstein.html Daly, K. (2004). The Changing Culture of Parenting. Retrieved January 2, 2007, from The VANIER INSTITUTE of the FAMILY, available at: http://www.vifamily.ca/library/cft/parenting.html Golley, K. R. (2007). Parenting-Skills Training Plus Healthy Lifestyle Assists Weight Control in Prepubertal Children. Pediatrics, 119, 517-525. Hochschild, A.R. (1998). Ideals of Care: Traditional, Postmodern, Cold-Modern, and Warm-Modern. In Families in the U.S.: Kinship and Domestic Politics, eds. Karen V. Hansen and Anita Ilta Garey. Temple University Press: Philadelphia, 527-538. Kelly, K. (2003). THE BAFFLED PARENTS GUIDE to stopping bad behavior. Contemporary Books: Chicago. Martin, G. & Kats, V. (2003). Families and Work in Transition in 12 Countries, 1980-2001: Nontraditional Living Arrangements and the Employment of Women, Including Mothers of Young Children, Continued to Increase in Developed Nations. Monthly Labor Review, 126, 79-84. Men, women sharing parenting. 2003. Retrieved January 2, 2007, from THE HINDU, available at: http://hindujobs.com/thehindu/2003/04/21/stories/2003042107520300.htm New Bank Report Says World Faces Pensions Crunch-Major Reforms Unavoidable. 2005. Retrieved January 2, 2007, from The World Bank, available at: http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:20511866~pagePK:64257043~piPK:437376~theSitePK:4607,00.html Parenting. Retrieved January 2, 2007, from bbc.co.uk available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/parenting/work/betterbalance_workculture.shtml Vinosvskis, M. (1989). Historical Perspectives on the Development of the Family and Parent-Child Interactions. In PARENTING ACROSS THE LIFESAPAN: Biosocial Dimensions, eds. Jane B. Lancaster, Jeanne Altmann, Alice, S. Rossi & Lonnie R. Sherrod. Aldine Transaction: New Jersey. 272-295 Read More