Monday, February 18, 2013

A rant: Modern Parenting

This is just my opinion as a parent (flame me if you wish,)
But people can be told they are loved too much
I know in the politically correct presumptively feminine ideal of modern
American pop culture there is a default cult of the soccer mom  

The sins of the workaholic, drunk, absent, abusive, Neanderthal father,
Who is expected to do little more than bring home a pay-check
And enjoys or initiates such distance from cooking, cleaning or child-rearing
Is a dying fable ailing in parallel to the conceptual non-employed mother  

In this broken down 21st Century both parents must work in middle class America
This transition is morphing a disseminating allocation of what is so commonly referred
To as a package of chores handed out by the female in the household  

As if the domain of a dishwasher, a pot, and a sink or a towel, a basket, and a washer
Or a floor, a broom and a dustpan, or a countertop, disinfectant and a rag
Or an electronically drafted utility bill or packing a school lunch with apple slices
Or the name of a kid’s BFF or a bounce house party on the upcoming Saturday  

Were each an equal conundrum to the male of the human species and without
The female’s interface he would be left staring at a sock draw sorting
Like Sisyphus for all eternity 

This condescension has led to stay-at-home mothers being dubbed as having three jobs
On Dr. Phil and Oprah, who while I admire their conversations with America,
This one in particular is placating their wallet and their target audience to its detriment 

There are multiple types of income to a family, but the insecurity of the stay-at-home parent
Due to past mistreatment and manipulation by men over women is transposing into an Overcorrected battleground in Generation X that is destroying the natural vulnerability of women And the independent provider confidence of men as roles converge 

Each must release and become more of the other’s gender to allow recognition
That we are each required to do more, all of it, more, there is no reprieve from this economy  

Every child is a choice, a conscious act of penis in vagina or adoption
Our inability to have mature conversations about the reality of sex and the alternative of abortion
In context to the fiscal reality of the lowest rungs to the highest in modern societies
With access to birth control, the inevitable accidental pregnancies and the cop-outs of intentional and unintentional pregnancies defaulting to taxpayers for financial subsidy is pandemic   

If you are a parent of multiple children and staying at home as a surrogate to child care for your home, you made a choice, you are not a martyr and no one should be applauded for parenting their own children.  Those picking up the missing link adopting those who have no one; you are in a different arena all together.   

Those making choices should simply find the self-respect to own their choice and know for every piece of candy pressed into the carpet, every diaper full of feces, every request to satiate an offspring’s boredom or despair or absence of plaything; there is the choice staring back and the alternative of the world does not owe a bit of gratitude,  

The best one can expect is a lack of admonishment for when a parent meets this expectation through the rearing attempt of a child, which may or may not listen to a damn thing a parent every says or a morsel of empathy when a parent has tried everything without avail 

One of those gaps is a parent telling their child at every interface how much they are loved
I mean this in the sense that once a moderate dosage is not deemed enough and it is repeated and repeated, the message becomes like antibiotics treating a mythical gap in self-esteem until like all medications the effect is diminished to entertain a child’s doubts of any word that comes out a parent’s mouth  

Some kids do need to hear such waves of words, but I will offer this:
A secure love is one hug, one kiss, one phrasing, not ten, not once said, then said again and again
As if the first one could not have been accepted by the child from the parent
So the insecurities of the parent are broadcasted to the offspring in repetition  

A parent must above all avoid hypocrisy, when time-out is uttered to a four-year old
A child must understand the lack of negotiation, there cannot be debate or pampering or
Mixed messages, parents must stand firm in the declaration that it is not easier or better
In the long run to allow a child to eat spun-sugar or never become an organized human  

Discipline is born in the absence of such hypocrisy and thus none can exist in the presence
Of a babbling parent splicing his or her tongue to placate a child who naturally wants
In every way to please the parent and to learn the rules of life, this resistance is not obstinacy
It is an organism testing environmental stimuli to discern consequence with action  

When seven ‘I love you’s’ are uttered or no time-outs come, the anesthetization of youth
Cascades into adults who have never been trained how to be parents 

So in this I urge the loving parents of this world, for us to be secure in our love
To teach our children to be secure in our absence, to know the depth of love
Without the perpetual verbal reconfirmation to the degree that is currently in action   

For the wives, allow your husbands to be seen as equal help-mates in the house
Without dictating and criticizing his way of cleaning, cooking or child rearing as if he were you.  A single gender did not invent such domains. 

For the only way he will ever take a portion of ownership of them, as such daytime talk shows seem to fantasize over, is for the female to let go, to have the secure-self-love that you are worth more than a dishwasher and he can do this and still value you beyond this role;  

How often are the signals of female condescension actually a quest for self-definition and a macro-level affirmation of who she is as a whole?  Men are no different.  Men seek the same.  When a wife’s paycheck supplants a husband’s, he faces a similar unspoken psychological reconciliation of gender roles, identity and self-worth.  Husbands do the same with your fonts of empathy  

In this balance the world can achieve a complementary pinnacle unrivaled in potential of gender.
In this balance children can be afforded the tools to conquer our multi-faceted global workplace
Whether or not the prior generations understand why such equilibrium is pertinent.

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