PARENTAL CARE IN OUR CONTEMPORARY WORLD: CHALLENGES

Introduction
The context of our discourse will be the family. Obviously, it will be worth while to give a brief understanding of a family immediately. A family is a society consisting of a husband or father, wife or mother, and their children. It consist of two components, a horizontal component–– the union of husband and wife called conjugal society––, and a vertical component–– the union of parents and children called parental society. We note here that these components are not really two distinct components, but two aspects within the family. A family may accidentally have one component only, but this is not the normal case.


Parental Care Vis-à-vis Contemporary World
The duty of caring for the child naturally devolves on the parents. The child cannot live at all without intense care for several years. Parents are naturally equipped with the means for rearing the child and normally impelled to do so by natural instinct and love. This is why other agencies are poor make-shifts. It is worth emphasizing that parental care belongs to both parents and not to one alone, as is gradually becoming common today. The mother bears the child and nurses it, the help of the father is necessary, not only in the first years of the child’s life, but throughout the whole period of parenting. In fact, it is even toward the latter part of the training period that the father’s influence is most necessary, when he must fit his children, especially the boys, to take there places in human life. Nature has given mothers and fathers different capacities that are psychologically as well as physically complimentary. The influence of the father’s sternness, as well as of the mother’s sweetness is necessary for the adequate training of the child.
Parental care is becoming a herculean task in our contemporary world because of the sweeping changes we witness. As a result, traditional structure of local communities is subjected to ever more changes. Industrialization and urbanization are on the increase, both on account of the expanding number of city dwellers and the spread of an urban way of life into moral settings. Recent more efficient mass media contribute to the spread of knowledge and speedy diffusion of thoughts and feelings. All these inevitably call accepted family values into question. This is tree, above all, of young people who have grown impatient at times and indeed, rebellious in their distress. They aspire to play their part and it frequently happens that parents and teachers face increasing difficulties in the performance of their tasks. Traditional institutions, laws and modes of thoughts and emotion do not always appear to be in harmony with today’s world.

Challenges of Parental Care
LOVE: Every human person desires to be loved and appreciated. This is truer of every growing child. It is not enough to provide the child with every need without showing affection. Expression of love goes beyond fulfilling parental obligations. Even infants observe their mothers’ reactions while breastfeeding them.
OBEDIENCE: Here we refer to forming ones children to be obedient and respectful in the society. We must distinguish here between obedience and conformity. Conformity is the mere carrying out of an instruction usually out of fear of punishment. In conformity, the child is yet to understand and be convinced of the goodness, of the particular instruction in question. This is becoming common in today when every thing is put to question by children and young people. Obedience goes beyond carrying out an order to believing in the goodness of instructions. Parents are greatly challenged to cultivate the virtue of obedience in their families. It is advisable that parent treat their children with love and respect, building up self-confidence in their children. One of the reasons why children learn to conform instead of obeying is that some parents are not open to dialogue in their families. They simply give orders as in a military setup and expect everyone to abide by them. While firmness and authority are to be upheld, there should always be room for meaningful discussion and communication within the family
PERSONALITY DIFFERENCES: This is a very important issue in parenting. Children have varied personalities, with none being better than the other. There is usually a tendency of parents imposing their own personalities and aspirations on their children. This does a great violence to children and can bring crisis in their lives as they grow up. Parents should be conscious of the fact that every human person is unique and cannot be repeated. They are challenged to nurture the giftedness of each child and help him/her live a fulfilled life. It is almost impossible to over-emphasize the immense human need of being listened to, being taken seriously, and being understood. No one can fully develop freely in this world and find a complete life without feeling understood by at least one person.
CAREER PARENTS: The economic trend, coupled with the struggle for equality of both sexes, has almost made it inevitable that both parents work and earn a living for their family. This obviously has a price to pay on the children. As we said earlier, other care givers are poor make-shifts which cannot substitute the parents. Parents are now caught up between retaining their jobs and caring properly for their children. From the beginning of the marriage, the spouses must have to discuss this issue frankly and make proper decisions.
SPIRITUALITY: The Latin adage says “Nemo dat quod non habet” No one gives what he/she does not have. This is true of religious upbringing of children. We may recall that the family is seen also as the first church children attend. It behoves on the parents to “minister” to their children as they grow up. Religious upbringing is not just sending them for catechism to receive sacraments. The children should experience their parents living a deep prayerful life which flowers in their relationship between themselves and with other people. We cannot deny the fact that some children grow up and throw away their religious formation, but when there is proper cultivation of the sense of the sacred, this rarely happens. Spiritually goes with discipline and formation of conscience. It is unfortunate that some countries overemphasize the rights of children to the extent that indiscipline, secularism and moral relativism are enthroned, especially in schools. Parents are to make proper choices of schools for their children. Discipline is given at one end of a child to impress on the other.

Conclusion
There are many other challenges of parental care in our world today which are not discussed here for want of space. We hope that those mentioned here would suffice in calling parents and would-be parents to reflection on the challenges of the modern times, and spur them to re-evaluate their manner of caring for their children. If a parent can give a child a vision, he/she has given the child one of the best gifts. If a teacher can create an idea of what life might be, he/she has done his/her part. Children should also be reminded that no dream comes true until one wakes up and goes to work.
I would like to conclude with the advice of Richard Curtis that “a child is a mirror that reflects happiness, or lack of it in a home.” This is also confirmed in the Scripture: “children are indeed a heritage from the Lord … Happy is the man who has his quiver full of men (Psalm 127:3-5a). The parents’ tasks cannot be shifted to the church, the school, or social agencies, for these organizations can assist but can not, and should not, supplant the work of the parents. Neither school nor counseling agency should usurp the parents’ place as family head, but both organizations can work together to help solve family problems.
By Okey Jude Lemeh