Parenting is a serious business. It requires one being awake to his or her responsibility of directing one's children to the right path.
The world is changing, so is every living soul in it. Amidst the different changes happening in the world, one needs to, as a parent, guide the children to take the positive path even if they decide to explore some changes. Some changes are positive while some are negative.
My role is to make my children understand the consequences of the available choices when it comes to decision making. There was a time when parents would warn their female children never to go near men. They would be told that going close to men would bring unwanted pregnancy. How? No one goes into the details. It's a topic that our culture detest discussing with teenagers. Unfortunately, there were different cases of unwanted pregnancies. As sex education began to gain acceptance, teenage girls are made to know how premarital sex could jeopardize their future. The details are laid bare. This is the process that I see to be helpful. I will discuss everything with my kids. I won't leave them to the mercy of society. If I don't teach them in the right way, they would learn it outside the wrong way. I will guide my children to follow the path of humanity and morality just the way my parents guided me to adulthood.
My parents tried their best but I identified some loopholes in terms of heart-to-heart discussion about some topics. Some topics are seen as not discussable. I can say that their prayers helped to close the gap that such loopholes would have created. I learned from that and it is my duty to get it perfect with my children.
In all these, I won't be an autocratic parent. As a teacher, my children should be evidence of my career achievement. They should exhibit the characters that I am proud of.
Talking about religion, culture and any other way of life, I will leave my children to freely make their choices. The only thing I will do is to show them how my culture or religion is the best. If they end up adopting another religion or culture, I will support them wholeheartedly.
There are some things that I hold in high esteem. One of them is being humane in actions and interpersonal relationships. This should form the basic foundation of human existence. Whether you are a Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist etc., there are some basic rules of life that one should respect. Right to life. Right to freedom of expression. Right to freedom of worship. Emotional intelligence and the rest. Once my children understand these basic rules of coexistence, I am in support of whatever choice they make.
However, there are few exceptions to this. For instance, I can't welcome a child that chose to indulge in homosexuality, crossdressing or transgender. If any of my children chose this direction, I will do all I could to talk them back into the basic acceptable moral values as African. If he refuses, I would leave him to his choice.
Like I said in the beginning, I won't allow things to degenerate to that extent. I will work on my children right from day one so that they will follow my guidance to the fullest.
I remember how we used to throw shades at teachers whose children are belligerent. It's important for one's kids yo exhibit the morals one is trying to impact on children of other people.
That's exactly the way I see it. When I was in secondary, a few teachers had their children in the school as students. Whenever a group of students did something wrong, the children of teachers among them received the bigger punishment.
A child should be a reflection of his parents in character.
Those topics that were not discussed then, affected a lot of us in some ways. I hope it won't be same for me with my kids.
I think a heart to heart should be more between parents and children like it should be between spouses.
I have people around me including siblings that were victims of such silence.
This should be the case. Children should be free to tell their parents anything and everything. Parents should be ready to provide answers to their questions and provide guidance.
Exactly. When you lay the foundation from the beginning, it won't be hard for kids to take on the right path even if they want to go with their choice of lifestyle, religion and culture. When a child is being taught the right morals right from when he is little, it would be easier to walk in that line. So, parents should start the training early so that there wouldn't be issue.
That foundation is very important. It can't be overemphasized. Children shouldn't be left to the mercy of society. They should be taught love and good morals right from childhood. Once they grow with them, they don't need to consult their parents to take the right path. A parent would be proud at that level.
You are right. When children are taught good morals from childhood, parents also would feel at peace knowing their children are taking on the good path with their decisions.
It takes an enlightened parent to see things the way you do, most parents consider themselves as a figure responsible for dictating the fate of their children which includes matters of religion.
On matters of homosexuality, it might look like a widely accepted norms in today's world but we Africans still have our beliefs and perspective about the whole concept.
I have observed that when parents are too autocratic about fate of their children, it mostly doesn't end well. If you look critically, there were loopholes in proper guidance during childhood.
African way of life is in variant with the strange way of life called LGBT. It's a pill that we may not swallow anytime soon.