Good parenting of the twenty-first century
- More concerned and involved parents.
With the emergence of nuclear family trends, a woman’s involvement in the kitchen has reduced as has also the overall commitment toward house upkeep and hospitality demands. This allowed her more space and time to be with her child, while commuting to and from school and tuitions. Some venture to parks, weekend outings and other entertainment outside of home. Thus, mothers have become more active and focused on the child’s daily routine. Fathers also are more available and contributing in the overall life of their child, which was traditionally not required of them earlier.
- Risk taking parents.
Parents are willing to trust the school and other avenues more, so they soften their boundaries for kids. The children are able to explore more of new activities and ideas earlier on in life. Hence, the courage zone of parents has improved, as they have relaxed their strict rules pertaining to the child’s whereabouts and companionship.
- More informed and educated parents.
With the advent of cyberspace, parents and kids are almost on the same wavelength. They both have access to the same knowledge and information, which helps in eliminating the generation gap. They also share similar skills and are thus able to understand each other better.
- More ambitious about the child’s development and success.
Global access has propelled parents to work very hard on the educational and career needs of their child. We see smarter kids competing more and more earlier on. Parents are willing to invest their best resources for the child’s perceived future economic success.
- More engaged with experts and mentors for improvement.
Twenty-first century parents are also observed to be open to advice from experts. They seek counsel from mentors in times of trouble and need. They surf the internet for guidelines. They are more eager for solutions and are open to discussion.
Bad parenting of the twenty-first century
- Parents are materialistic.
Personality grooming has become more important than character development. Hence, parents buy all such products and services that make their families look good on the social media and in person, too. Materialism makes kids ungrateful, easily bored with their possessions, dissatisfied with themselves and an easy target for the fast changing culture trends.
- Parents seem to be at the beck and call of the child.
A new breed of overly democratic parents has emerged, who literally take their child’s permission before any decision impacting the child: what clothes he or she wants to wear; what gadgets he or she wants to own and so on. These kids seldom help around the home chores or serve their parents or grandparents. Instead, they are being served round the clock for their needs.
- Parents have a spiritual and familial disconnection.
For most families, religion is an option. Hence, there is no sense of accountability, if the child does not truly know his Creator, does not think of reasons, why the Prophet (sa) was sent to this world, and has no idea what Islam demands from him. Furthermore, no family legacies are being transferred in terms of skills, as they get termed outdated and not useful. A common example is that of sewing. Extended family members are considered as strangers with all the focus being only on the nuclear family.
- They are overly competitive.
This is an outcome of being materialistic. In the absence of Tarbiyah (character building) or Deen (spiritual enhancement), the focus now left is on the academic needs leading to future careers. Parents today overly emphasize the need for their child to be on the top. This turns the kids into bitter, selfish, arrogant and impatient individuals with low-self-esteem.
- For parents, their child’s happiness is supreme.
Parents give in to kid’s tantrums and stubbornness. Due to this, we have kids living on junk food and spending more and more time with violent and inappropriate screen games. As these kids grow up, they choose their own curfew hours, friends to hang out with, past times, career choices, and life partners. Next, they decide how soon to end any job, relationship, or marriages. Sadly, parents are either silent bystanders or actually facilitators of this whole fiasco.
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