Skip to main content

Parenting and Partners

Of the four parenting styles this paper refers to, I likely fit the third one which is described thusly:

Authoritative parents are both demanding and responsive. "They monitor and impart clear standards for their children's conduct. They are assertive, but not intrusive and restrictive. Their disciplinary methods are supportive, rather than punitive. They want their children to be assertive as well as socially responsible, and self-regulated as well as cooperative" (Baumrind, 1991, p. 62).

What I have learned from observing other parents and looking inward, is appearance and reality can be far apart. Most of us may wish to be authoritative but the temperament of the kid/s we are raising will greatly challenge our ability to live up to this ideal. When there are multiple children in the family, adjusting style to fit the needs of each one will end up confusing all of the kids and enable bad behavior and breed resentment along the way. 

Kids like to see parents are treating them in like and fair manner - they lack the sophistication to understand the value of a bespoke parenting style even if it is meant to serve them best. This is the hardest thing to balance for a parent. Under the pressure created by the needs of very different kids, the parenting style devolves into a hybrid that serves all of them somewhat well but none of them exceptionally. 

There is also the theory that parenting style is a direct reflection of personality which can impact the relationship of the parents in ways that they had never anticipated until kids became part of their family unit and raising them a bellwether for their own relationship.

It is said that an uncompromising and autocratic parent (perhaps even the ones that is trying to be authoritative and failing to do so) is likely to be the controlling partner in the relationship. Whereas, the lenient, permissive parent is likely to be indifferent to the needs and concerns of their partner or remain non-assertive on important issues that impact the family. 

So in a situation where both parents are trying to do the right thing  by being "both demanding and responsive.", depending on how far the fail to meet the mark, they would end up very far apart. One would land on the indulgent end of the spectrum and the other would turn authoritarian in an subconscious effort to restore balance. This is probably the worst of all possible worlds for all concerned. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cheese Making

I never fail to remind J that there is a time and place for everything. It is possibly the line she will remember me by when I am dead and gone given how frequently she hears it. Instead of having her breakfast she will break into a song and dance number from High School Musical well past eight on Monday morning. She will insist that I watch and applaud the performance instead of screaming at her to finish her milk and cereal. Her sense of occasion is seriously lacking but then so is mine. Consider for example, a person walks into the grocery store with the express purpose of buying detergent because they are fresh out of it and laundry is only half way done. However instead of heading straight for detergent, they wander over to the natural foods aisle and go berserk upon finding goat milk on sale for a dollar a gallon. They at once proceed to stock pile so they can turn it to huge quantities home-made feta cheese. That person would be me. It would not concern me in the least that I ha...
5 comments
Read more

Part Liberated Woman

An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no matter how flawed and imperfect. We have both spent over a decade outside India and have kids who were born abroad and have spent very little time back home. Returning "home" is something a lot of new immigrants like L and myself think about. We want very much for that to be an option because a full assimilation into our country of domicile is likely never going to happen. L has visited India more often than I have and has a much better pulse on what's going on there. For me the strongest drag force working against my desire to return home is my experience of life as a woman in India. I neither want to live that suffocatingly sheltered existence myself nor subject J to it. The freedom, independence and safety I have had in here in suburban America was not even something I knew I could expect to have in India. I never knew what it felt t...
111 comments
Read more

Under Advisement

Recently a desi dude who is more acquaintance less friend called to check in on me. Those who have read this blog before might know that such calls tend to make me anxious. Depending on how far back we go, there are sets of FAQs that I brace myself to answer. The trick is to be sufficiently evasive without being downright offensive - a fine balancing act given the provocative nature of questions involved. I look at these calls as opportunities for building patience and tolerance both of which I seriously lack. Basically, they are very desirous of finding out how I am doing in my personal and professional life to be sure that they have me correctly categorized and filed for future reference. The major buckets appear to be loser, struggling, average, arrived, superstar and uncategorizable. My goal needless to say, is to be in the last bucket - the unknown, unquantifiable and therefore uninteresting entity. Their aim is to pull me into something more tangible. So anyways, the dude in ques...
6 comments
Read more