I'll be up front: I really really dislike children. I have absolutely no desire to reproduce. However, I do appreciate parents, especially mothers. I love my mother. She did, as still does, a lot. She's a single mom so she had the wonderful task of raising two children without a second parent around. Yes, she had support from other family members, but from what I gather that isn't the same as having a second parental figure around 24/7 to help raise your progeny. Being raised by a single mom did a lot to shape my ideas of parents and what they should be doing.
Firstly, I really think we need to get over this whole division of labour way of looking at parenting. Are you really going to argue over who does the dishes? Also, I'm fairly certain your children (unless they are quite young) can help you with basic tasks. I definitely "helped" my mom clean when I was little. It teaches your children how to be adults...which gets to my second point.
Two: parents should be more focused than they seemingly are on raising their kids to just be decent human beings. Because, newsflash, CHILDREN ARE PEOPLE...or they will become people. That really depends on your definition of "person" (which is a discussion for a different blog post). I'm pretty sure my mom went into the whole parenting thing thinking "As long as Lindsey just keeps this whole decapitation thing to Barbies, my job as her mother will be done." She just wanted me to not become a serial killer. Isn't that all we really want from kids?
Basic things parents should be teaching their kids:
1. How to resolve conflicts so that decapitation isn't the answer
2. How to clean up after themselves
3. To be humble enough to call for a ride home when you're too schwasted to drive
4. How to balance a checkbook and file your taxes
5. Basic moral code (i.e. don't kill people, don't lie, don't cheat, etc. )
6. How to be your own person
This is in no a comprehensive list, but basically parents need to teach their kids basic life skills. I think the best way to do this is through example. For instance, I have a really fun anecdote about number 3. When I was 16, my mom got real drunk at staff party. I was babysitting for the (sober) co-worker she went to the party with, so when my mom's co-worker came back home with my drunk mom it was suddenly my responsibility to drive us home. Disclaimer: I was not the best teenage driver. By this point, I had already totaled two cars. So my mom had a lot of faith in my abilities. When my mom stumbled through that door, she leaned onto me as drunk people tend to do, and looked me (kinda) square in the eye and slurred "You gotta take us home. I can't do it" as she handed me the car keys.
The point of the story is not to make my mom look like a sloppy, irresponsible drunk. Rather what it shows is that parents aren't perfect, and they shouldn't pretend to be. After driving my mom home and holding her hair as she puked up tequila, I learned. One, that tequila smells disgusting coming back up. And two, everyone fucks up. Everyone is going to need a ride home and you shouldn't judge them for that. I know I felt a lot better drunk calling my mom one night a few years later asking for a ride home. It built trust.
Which gets me to another point. Why is there such a formal relationship between parents and children? Why doe people think that there needs to be such an obvious authoritative relationship? I think parents and kids need to get to know each other as PEOPLE, not as that human being that came out of my vagina. There needs to be trust built and mutual respect. Parents are supposed to look out for their kids and have their best interests at heart. I think that would be a lot easier if parents actually knew their kids.
