The art of parenting

Like many things in life, parenting doesn't come with a user manual and in a lot of cases, a parent will try their best to push their child in the right direction but the child will still end up going wayward and doing what they like. I have seen many parents trying so hard to force their kids to follow a particular path and most of the time it doesn't end well. Whenever I hear stories like that, I always assume that the parents are trying to live the life they never had through their kids.

Just because you never got to become a doctor, then automatically one of your kids must become a doctor. Sometimes I wonder; do such parents want what is good for their children or they are just after their personal benefit? Some of them see their children as investments; a means to an end and insurance for old age. I am very glad with the way my parents raised me and my siblings, they gave us a lot of freedom to discover our own path. This doesn't mean they spoilt us silly when we were kids, it is actually the opposite of that.

It's like learning how to ride a bicycle; my parents helped to steady the bicycle as we peddled, guiding us in the right direction until we were able to steady ourselves and figure out a path to follow. That's how it's supposed to be but some parents still hold on to that bicycle and push it into the path they want, even when their kids are old enough to ride on their own and figure out their own path. My siblings and I picked a course to study in school without any resistance from our parents. I could have even chosen to study something like music and they wouldn't even mind.

But some parents are the ones that decide which career path their kids will take. Initially, I thought these things happen only in movies until I met some people in the university whose parents picked what they were studying and some of them weren't even happy with it. With all these I have talked about, you can see why I believe in giving kids a little bit of freedom. So, what I will do for my future kids is basically the same thing my parents did for me; I will guide them on the right path until they become old enough to figure things out on their own.

Yes, I would allow them to switch to a different culture or religion. They can travel to India and become a follower of Hinduism or even start their own religion, it doesn't bother me but I know parents that will disown their child for doing such, it's quite a shame. I can keep an open mind when my kids deviate from my way of life and switch to something else (at least something legal) but I do have a limit and there's some type of switching that doesn't make any sense and number one on that list is switching gender. It's crazy how people are now identifying as something else today and that's one thing I won't allow in my family.

I can't give birth to a son and later he will start dressing like a woman and telling me to refer to him as she or shim or one of the other crazy pronouns out there, I refuse to be confused. Well, I won't say more on that but that's one of the things I won't support my child switching to. In the end, parents can only do their best in raising their children in the right way but ultimately, the children will still decide on a path to take later on, be it the one their parents advised them to take or a different path that they discovered. It might favour them or may become disastrous, but that's just how life is, there are lessons to learn everywhere.

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