THE IMORTANCE OF PARENTHOOD
It is a perplexing mystery to me that the most important job in this country, nay the planet, requires no qualifications at all, beyond a functioning erection and the monthly release of a viable ovum.
Whether you have one child or a gaggle of them, if you and your parental partner (if you have one) are working full time to make ends meet, you are most likely in the category of parenthood I am about to talk about.
Call me an elitist, a snob and/or an intellectual wannabe (pretentious prick) if you must, but don’t you dare call me a social conservative for suggesting, that the outsourcing of parental responsibilities to a for profit Childcare Centre and a TV/iPad/XBox is turning a whole nation into lower middle bogans.
I am not suggesting that you are (necessarily) lazy for using Childcare Centres when working or handing your iPhone to a grizzly child for a moments peace at the end of a busy day. Childcare Centres are a necessity in a society where the cohesion of extended families is under threat from the need (and the urgings of our hapless politicians) to “live where the jobs are”.
One of the hapless politicians, this one a real live pretentious prick, only half jokingly suggested, that already struggling families should have one extra child “for the country”, to address the declining birth rate. Yes, it’s the one with a penchant for wearing fishnet stockings; or was that fake news? I can’t recall…
Picking up where I left off from my last article, “The Importance of Being Rigorous” (the one you meant to read, but where too busy to), I would like to remind all of us, how crucially important high quality early childhood upbringing is as a foundation for a happy and fulfilling life! Yet, without the tools to facilitate such an upbringing and the incredible demands placed on working parents nowadays, our youngest generation of kiddies are facing a double whammy of inept (or less than ideal) parenting and a digitally impoverished version of family life.
Expecting mums go to prenatal classes to prepare for a natural birth, though why they don’t just book a cesarean section (on a footy free day, of course) is, as a male, a mystery to me. Then again, if males could have babies, I suspect abortion would be a sacrament! But I digress…
If women are prepared to ease their “bundles of joy” into this world by learning all about natural birthing, men (and women) should be prepared to learn parental skills and methodologies to ensure a harmonious and mutually beneficial childhood for their charges and fulfilling parenthood for themselves!
If there is ever a time for males to “become a man and put away childish things”, impending fatherhood is it! Yet, every woman knows damn well that most men never grow up, much less put away their childish toys!
So what’s the answer? Well, don’t ask me for a start! My two boys are reasonable productive and successful members of society only due to my wife’s super human effort and my underserved dumb luck. I do admit to at least trying to be a good father, but could I have done better? Damn right I could have! If humans are the most complex biological beings in the universe, then bringing up our children is by definition a super complex undertaking. One shouldn’t expect to master it as a matter of course, as if we were pre-ordained to do the job right. Modern society needs more than simple role play to prepare our children for an ever complex and demanding life. Using my preferred method of “do as I say, don’t do as I do” will simply not cut it anymore, if indeed it ever did.
Why don’t you write to the editor with your ideas about the best ways to parental success. This is a job for all of us!
OT
P. S. If your idea consists solely of “don’t spare the rod”, you might want to read my article “The Importance of Being Rigorous” first! (Sweet Sea News Feb 2017)