Millions of youth are suffering in the world today because of bad parenting. Many couples have children they did not plan for, or were ill-prepared to take care of.
Ladi Ayodeji
How you turn out in life may largely be the consequences of what your parents did to you and to themselves. It is like a two-edged sword. But the good news is that whatever their actions or inaction about you or themselves, you can still change your circumstances, even if your upbringing obviously consigned you to the wrong side of life.
Millions of youth are suffering in the world today because of bad parenting. Many couples have children they did not plan for, or were ill-prepared to take care of. Some parents claim that a child came by accident through unwanted pregnancy. To impregnate a woman and not want the baby is an afterthought, a cruel admission of parental irresponsibility.
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Anyone with an ounce of intelligence knows that if you sleep with a woman or, bet in pregnancy. Many careless couples, married and unmarried, pretend not to know this fact. So, they give birth to children they can’t care for and end up either abandoning them or dumping them in dustbins and running away. If the child is unlucky, it could be picked up by a ritualist; if it is fortunate, a Good Samaritan could take it to an orphanage. That is how we have “motherless babies’ homes.” Motherless children are products of useless fathers.
Some children from poor homes, who were born “accidentally” without a definite desire to have them, end up not being trained properly. This is because their parents lack resources and the capacity to put them through school or any form of apprenticeship where they could learn some trade. In most cases, most of these children graduate on the streets as area boys, touts, pick-pockets and, ultimately, violent criminals. They are ready recruits for terror groups like Boko Haram.
Irresponsible parentage is a destiny destroyer and is at the heart of the many social ills that plague the world today. Ordinarily, youth from poor homes who have modest education target careers in the armed services. Most of these chaps are the infantry men, gunners, army ground troops, seamen and ratings in the Navy and the rank and file in the police and other security agencies.
When parents fail to train their children, they condemn them to the lower rungs of the social ladder. Unless such poor children are talented or natural-born fighters, who are able to identify their purpose and pursue a vision, they often end up as social miscreants as aforementioned.
Parents who know their onions plan the lives of their children from cradle almost to the grave. If you purpose to have the number of children you can cope with, you have done well. It means you are realistic. Good parents train their wards properly both at home and academically to become a blessing to them, the children themselves and their generation. That is what children are meant to be, and that is why parents should have them.
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You can purposely position your kids for success by the way you bring them up. Of course, some children are stupid, difficult to train and naturally disposed to failure; good parenting can still help mould such difficult children or manage them to become averagely successful, rather than they ending up as total failures.
Many parents bite more than they can chew. They keep having children beyond their capacity to handle. They dodge responsibility by sending them to relatives to train or care for. That is wrong. You are supposed to train your own children. Others may help, but it is not their responsibility. When children are imposed on others unsolicited, the kids end up being abused in many ways, sexually, as slave labourers, etc. Many disadvantage children are often the victims of rape, torture and cruelty by callous or disgruntled guardians.
It is a myth to have kids and say that the children are from God. Without you sleeping with the opposite sex, no baby can be born. It is not God, but you, that decides to birth a baby. Of course, God gives all blessings, including the fruit of the womb. Yet, it is entirely your decision to have a child or not. A lot of children are the products of sexual indiscipline or misadventure. But parenting is a serious venture. The world needs serious education in parenting to engender a generation of successful homes.
Successful parents produce good children. Good children turn out as good citizens who in turn become good leaders. The whole process of social engineering starts within the home. Good parents run good homes. A home is a micronation. That is where we learn all the most important things in life that determine our success in life. Parenting is so important to the evolution of mankind that school administrators should begin to teach it as a special course of study. Settled homes were the bedrock of the stable and progressive societies of old. The widespread cases of broken homes, divorce and the single parenting phenomenon today is turning the world upside-down. It is a trend we must arrest. It is a shame to have children and run away from the responsibility of caring for them. No matter what, you should take care of your kids, that is the joy of parenting.
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Weekend spice: My father was a great intellectual energy. My best training came from him – Woodrow Wilson, 26th President of the United States.
OK, folks, see you again next Friday. Stay motivated.