Learning To Parent
Before now parents, and mothers in particular, were informed about parenting through family and community. Often a girl would have her understanding and training about looking after children set in place by being close to her mother when other siblings were being taken care of.
The same happened for boys. I distinctly remember my friend Thomas, a Maori boy in the north of New Zealand coming down to the beach with me. He always had one of his younger siblings on his hip and I loved that because I had a baby to play with. Today children are lucky if they have anything to do with a sibling as there are very few of them. Added to this, most children spend a lot of the time in child care facilities without the familial safety and relaxation which naturally produces caring sibling contact. Today mothers see their children through their own needs and are not always able to see exactly what is going on for their babies and especially their tiny infants. Therefore there is a great need for Mothers and Fathers to study and learn in other ways preferably well before they become Mothers and Fathers. If we take this point seriously we will develop educational programmes in schools, at least for senior students, where they will learn about the development of children along with the responsibilities and skills of becoming a parent. Why not? … when after all, the parenting role will become the most important role they will take on in their whole life. That is of course if they choose that and most will ………