Sanjose A Thomas

Once a question was raised to Sigmund Freud, world famous psycho analyst regarding the world’s most patient task putting in the brain and heart of a person and instantly came his reply, “no doubt it is to train a child into a man”. Freud was right as there are many tasks which require diligent effort and constant involvement but nothing so persistent as parenting which involves lot of trial and error and many intricate dimensions which make it the most crucial process of socialization in any society in the world. We are aware of how this process worked in 3 generations starting from the generation of our grandparents who lived in the first half of the last century and became parents by 1940’s or by 1950’s. Then our families were all joint families with each family consisting of 10 to 14 children on an average sharing limited space and living a life marred likely by poverty, scarcity and misery. At that point of time mom’s never had any idea whether her actual child ate food as she have had to manage many family chores within her limited abilities. Time passed by and we moved into the new era of nuclear families and the unleashing of the wave of modernity which also seriously re- aligned our relationships within the family as well as parenting as a whole. From a highly patriarchal and unequal mode of relationship, we entered into a new phase of parenting where child became the epicentre of the family and the restructuring of parenting based on the needs and aspirations of kids. Child not eating has become an ‘international issue’ and child or children started even taking family decisions on behalf of their parents. Food preferences as well as TV channel preferences within a post modern Indian family is now often decided by the child. Parenting became more fluid as an idea where child slowly advanced to the position of a decision maker and parents many often to that of silent regulators or passive stakeholders than active patriarchs as of the older times. Privacy and independence of the child became crucial concerns of the new age about which we never had any clues till 1990’s.
The obvious question with which we must ponder here is the need to cultivate healthy and effective parenting irrespective of the fact that children now live in a totally different world compared to those of the older generations. The best parent will be the one who takes a via media position than taking both the extreme stands that of either a strict disciplinarian or of a highly liberal ‘friend’. Many parents especially young parents use to say that they are friends to their children which in itself is a flawed idea. A parent can never be a friend to his /her child as a friend can never perform the role of an effective regulator of the child as friendly relationship is many often too equal in footing. It is in this context that parents should become sensible enough in the new millennium to shift to what is known as ‘smart parenting’ where on the one hand they must be loving, affectionate and caring and on the other they must not turn a blind eye to the mistakes of their wards. Because small mistake of a kid if uncorrected may eventually develop into an anti – social attitude of an adult. We are living in a world where our children are surrounded by many lurking dangers and the role of parents has now become multifaceted. As observed by Saint Kuriakose Elias of Chavara, “parents must also be very moderate in blaming and punishing their children. Gentle words carry more weight than high-sounding outcries”. Let this be the new mantra of moderate parenting in the brave new world.