A Brave New World

These are days when I am glad that I am no longer a new parent. I enjoy kids and have been fortunate that I had my daughter before the advent of the internet and when music with explicit lyrics were not given air time at all. Despite its extreme censureship, there had been some blessings in how the Philippines maintains a tight lid and old fashioned sense of control on media. I cannot sing enough praises that when my daughter was young it was far easier to control what she listened to and watched and that her biggest workship had only been the Hanson brothers. A big slice of her day had been to tinker and tweak her massive Barbie estate collection in quiet play which she neatly cleaned up after. Yes, people, my child is perfection right from the very start.

Last weekend, however, I had the pleasure of spending time with some friends who are new parents. I appreciated the hard work that they had to balance out whatever their four and seven year old kids picked up on the internet, the TV, the billboards or the radio. And I realized it is much harder now to be a parent. They shrug, however and said that it is hard if you get lazy and of course, it is so easy to get lazy. But you think about how they will grow up and what kind of people they will become then there is motivation to push on with the effort to talk to their children about what is right and what is wrong. Character building is a hit or miss thing, you have to get them while they are young.

I was impressed. Not so much with the children but how the parents patiently took on the role of parents as how I have known it once upon a time - as how my parents were. They are authority figures that the children did not even try to defy but at the same time, they weren't feared. Children defer to their parents out of respect and acknowledgement of authority. My friends say that they talk to them kindly but in the household the kids know who are the parents and who are the children. The parents do not attempt to be friends or chummy with them but they do converse freely about anything. It was so refreshing!

In a world where new parents have lost control of the household because the children are made to validate the major decisions, this was such a welcome idea. It is so true when my friends noted that when you get the children used to making decisions for you, you cannot turn the tables around when they reach teenagehood. So how do you enforce curfews and limit other behaviors when they are much bigger when they are used to being 'the boss' and you, the parent, are just an equal?

Kudos, Mirza and Robert Silverman! With the current baby boom among our friends, I hope more of them get the chance to enjoy the company of your wonderful kids Rachael and Joshua!!!!

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