Parenthood is an interesting phase of life that comes with the responsibility of parenting, which is the process of promoting and supporting the development of children. Parenting is an act of raising a child to the upmost good character.
However, to me parenting is a shadow work in the sense that they make us do whatever they couldn’t do but appear as a shadow leading the way, This may not be physical but they give us as children the frame with which we see the world. Our mindset is what builds us to be who we are and parents tend to be the bricklayers laying the foundation.
The child is brought to this world with ignorance, but parents take the responsibility of teaching them the things they want the child to do not necessarily what the child wants. Babies are the smartest of mankind, because the record any act they see in visual and put it into action.
Norms and values are built based on the community the child comes from. In some communities, good things or habits are seen as bad while some take bad thing or habits to be good. This determines the mindset of a child as such, whatever a child does turns out to be in the parents’ interest and not the child’s.
Generation to generation, the world changes but some patterns of parenting are still in line with the old method where the interest of a child is not important. The amazing thing about the circle is that children tend not to know what they really want because the parents impose their interest on the child.
Therefore, as a good child anything you do, you must seek their opinion or even think about them before engaging oneself. But parents do not consider that whether you are a good or bad child they are always glued to your brain – what our grandparents taught our parents is still what they are teaching us and that makes it a circle, which is why we keep getting the same result.
We see a young adult saying he/she chose a course of study in the university or a life partner, but he was taught to seek advise on any matter. Parents manipulate us in the guise of parenting and make us think we are on our own whereas wherever we go, they lead as our shadows.
However, it is true that parents are the foundation of their vhildren’s mindset; it should be more of grooming than mirroring. Most parents see their children as their version, which is very wrong. Everyone has his or her expectation from children but they usually fail because they tend to forget that two individuals make up a parent (dad and mum) and there is no way they can think alike. Parents should be loving and not over protective; they should be less involved in their children’s lives and just believe in them.
Finally, trust is the basic thing in life and parenting should help young adults to see freedom of clarity and be at their best.
Rilwan Abubakar Danbakaba,Department of Mass Communication,Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University,Lapai, Niger state
