Almost everything that has life that we see today in their appealing state was a seed once upon a time. The seed, technically the cell or atom is the basic unit of life. The fruit comes from the seed, therefore as we admire the fruit, we must perhaps doff our hat to the seed from which it came. The seed may not look appealing, but out of the non – appealing springs the appealing ( fruit).
Human society continues to evolve in contemporary times at a pace which is quite frightening. Sociologists and psychologists are struggling to keep up in predicting and explaining factors which inform social behaviour in modern times, and also to understand the drivers of individual behaviour as a reflection on group behaviour. Whilst we become social archaeologists digging to find explainable cues, an important phenomenon must not escape our attention. This is parenting.
I don’t want to wade into the long standing debate of nature vs. nurture as determinants of human behaviour. What I do know is that we have control over one, and that is where our focus should be. There is nothing, absolutely nothing which can be done about nature, so we must channel all efforts towards the controllable element: nurture.
Nurture is all about taking care of something/ someone and providing the right conditions for it/him/her to grow well. Nurture is highly environment – dependent. Somewhere in the world today, a child will be born, that child will be named, and great expectations of what that child should be in future will be pronounced or carefully kept in hearts. But as to whether that child will grow to meet those expectations will be a test of whether or not his/her parents will committedly nurture him/her.
Good parenting, where parents or guardians groom children through provision of needs, enforcing of disciplinary measures where good behaviour is rewarded and bad behaviour is punished, providing life guidance and counselling to children and introducing them to values which promote progressive lifestyles, is fast becoming an endangered specie. Good parenting is fast fading away, and like the dinosaurs of old, would soon only become tales of yesteryear written in books or told in gatherings as references of admonishment.
Parents don’t seem to have time for their children. The popular refrain is that they’re working hard to provide for the children. Parenting goes beyond provision of the needs of children to cover total training and development of the child. For some parents, it is irresponsibility at its peak. They have deliberately decided to ignore their children to lead their own lives. This is a recipe for disaster from which we may be unable to recover. Parenting is a call to responsibility. There are some parents also who are condoning the bad behaviour of their children in the name of ‘pampering’.
The rise in social vices in society is the failure of the family system at enforcing discipline and holistically nurturing the child. When the family fails, there is little the church, schools and other agents of socialization can do. We are building a menacing time bomb which might soon explode and leave unspeakable destruction in its wake. This bomb is only waiting for the appropriate trigger.
We must go back to taking parenting as a sacred duty and approach it with absolute commitment in order to restore sanity and order into our societies.
Having sex, conceiving and giving birth may be the easy part. The real work begins when the child enters this big stage called the ‘earth’. Here, the lifelong duty of nurturing, coaching, directing, guiding and mentoring begins.Buckle up for the ride and save humanity from a looming crisis.
Paul Edem Kuenyefu is a conference speaker, an experienced author, a business consultant and pastor. Contact him via, Email: paul.kuenyefu@gmail.com or Phone: +233 246585357
Disclaimer: the views expressed in this article represent the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the position of EfoConnect. EfoConnect cannot be held responsible or liable for any inaccurate statements contained in this article.
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