ARE WE ANY BETTER?

Children take over from their parents until they reach the stage where they form their own identities. This natural tendency to mimic their parents serves as the cradle of children’s socialisation. They try to walk, talk, eat, sit, and sleep like they see their parents do. I am no exception because I wanted to snore anytime I saw my father snore. I found that hard to do until I asked my mother; why can’t I snore like my father does? She replied in a sweet and gentle voice with a smile beaming on her beautiful face. Your father snores because he has catarrh because of mucus that has build-up in his throat.

Unlike many incidents that fade with time, this incident remains vivid in my memory. It often makes me reflect, pondering whether one day I will also become a role model for a child, just as I sought to emulate my father. Of the many behavioural traits are qualities we harbour that we learn or adopt from our parents. Children tend to do what they see rather than just follow verbal instructions.

As children, we inherited many behavioural attitudes from what we saw and some we imitate them in adulthood. Everyone has a father and a mother but not everyone has a parent. Everyone needs parenting like they need air to breathe because it’s through parenting that society gets to maintain its sanity. In as much as we complain about the vices that tend to overwhelm our communities, we fail to realise that the main problem is bad parenting. It’s quite unfortunate that we raise children as monkeys, and we tend to blame them when they climb trees in their adulthood.

It is important to understand that socialisation will inevitably take place be it positive or negative. But the bearer of the consequences is none other than the social being. We sometimes feel comfortable with our phones and underestimate the value of human interaction. We have relegated the power of human interaction to that which only puts coins in the pocket and that which raises the power of orgasm to the highest number. We share smiles with televisions and turn a gloomy face to our neighbour. We find delight in things we cannot get enough, so we do enough through any means to get that delight.

Undoubtedly, parenting is gravely demanding but a beautiful duty that none other than humans can execute perfectly. What do we engage in that we do wish to see our children do better? Feeding, clothing, and schooling are a microcosm of parenting. The bigger part of what you do for your child is influencing the child through your actions.

How kind are you? How well do you speak about people? How well do you admit your wrongs and how well do you strive to make them right? So, I ask; how are we contributing to society through our way of parenting?

©️Mystic Wanderer