can you be an adequate parent............?

[justacigar]

Ok now, at the risk of being hung drawn and quartered - I started a thread on the education bit about whether schools should be doing more to enhance emotional literacy. The consensus was no! no! no! that's a parents' job. Then someone else started a thread about 6th formers not being able to peel potatos. The implication being that their parents should have taught them by now. Do y'all think you CAN be an adequate parent if you both work full time or if you are a lone parent if you work full time? Do you think you CAN be an adequate parent, full stop?
what is one then?

Isn't the term 'good enough' parenting?

of course you can. i remember at ds2s 3 year check being asked does he know what a book is? and do you talk to him? didnt know how to answer either question cos it just seemed ridiculous that a 3 year old could have never seen a book or that i might not talk to him, but according to hv its not uncommon. i dont think it is anything to do with how much time you spend with them, its how you spend the time you have. my cousin is a sahm but her son does nothing but play on his playstation. a friend only sees his daughter every other weekend but devotes all the time he has to playing with her and talking to her. i know whose kid is better off

so what is our job then?

all you need to be is a 'ggod enough' parent

i think that geing able to prepare a basic meal at the ahe of 16/17 is not too much to expect of kids.

The more you get a child to help with things round the home, the better prepared they are for life in the big wide world. My mil was a lone parent with 4 boys under 13. They were expected to help out round the house, she was working fulltime, and couldn't molly coddle them! She raised 4 fine men, and i was lucky enough to marry one, who is ccoking tea for me as I mark books

oh lord, not this old chesnut. Of course you can! Good parenting is not about your work choices, it's about your parenting choices...

philipat just knocked the nail on the head

but what does that mean phillipa t? Sorry if it bores you but I am new here, and I'm not on a melanie phillips stylee crusade :I work myself. It all came out of wondering what school is for, and therefore, what parents are for. And given that at the moment I seem to be responsible not only for my kids' emotional wellbeing but also their academic progress - well it seems a bit daunting. And "fitting it all in" is a problem if you work, isn't it? It is for me.

Why do you feel responsible for their academic progress? Just out of interest?

Well - the reading and the homework. which need supervision, and in the case of numeracy, handholding. And which leave less time for fun.

How much do you need to do?

If they are having such probelms that you need to re-teach it to them, don't....the teacher needs to know they are finding it too hard (my feeling as a teacher anyway)

also, I don't think you should feel the need to measure your parenting by other people's values. The key thing is what is important to you. For example, it wouldn't bother me in the slightest if ds can't peel a potato/find a saucepan/recognise a kitchen by the age of 18 since cooking isn't something I place any value on. So long as he is a friendly, well-mannered, happy child that will make me feel I've done my job as a parent according to my lights. As for stuff others may consider important such as cooking, well he'll learn when he has to (as I did!). There's no point trying to live up to other people's standards. You have to decide for yourself what you consider the important values are that you want to impart to your child/children and then after that, only you (and they )can judge you meaningfully.

I don't think we parent in a vacuum though. The current thinking appears to be that everything goes back to parenting, but I suspect that children have not been subject to such a plethora of competing influences ever in history.

I know what you mean about doing it all. I have no idea how people who work 40 hours a week plus commuting time, have the energy to get on the case re table manners, homework, swimming lessons, tidying up skills etc. I barely have the energy and I only work 16 hours from home, so no hideous commute.

MB, re your comment - I put a comment on my DS's maths homework recently saying "He found this very difficult to grasp and I'm not sure he understands this" and she put a note back saying "he needs to understand it by the end of term". So I'm thinking, does that mean I have to teach him? Because I'm not trained to do that and am no good at it. (I'm hoping it doesn't mean that she's expecting me to, but it was sufficiently ambiguously worded for me to wonder. And it also made me think, lucky I only work 16 hours then, I've got more time than the average parent.)

Caligula, I would ask for clarification.

Does she intend to re visit the subject? Is it work in progress. If not, what is she going to do to help him over the problems.

While I think it is great for parents to encourage, support and re-inforce, the actual teaching is our job. Not to say people shouldn't you understand, but I don't think that they snould need to.

My mother worked nights when I was first born, and then part time during the day when I went to school, she encoraged us to read everything, I remember her telling us to read the cereal boxes in the mornings, but I also remember leaving potato's to boil dry in home EC class, because I thought some fairy would pop up from somewhere and tell me when they were ready as I honest had no idea I was about 13 at the time.

So don't worry about doing it all and doing something doesn't have to be some big session, like I said my Mum just encouraged us to read everything with four of us, and her jobs she didn't have time to find books sit us all down etc. so it was bus stop signs, boxes of food, billboard signs, working out change on a bus while going up town, while shopping making us add up her purchases, but it never occurred to her to teach me how to boil spuds, doesn't mean I love her any less

Emotional literacy is probably something with which parents should concern themselves, IMO. Potatoes are less important. Either way, you can be more than adequate and work.

On a different note, do you think oldest siblings are more proficient around the house than younger? It occured to me that I could cook a roast dinner without supervision when I was 11, but my sister, at 15, still doesn't know how to peel spuds!

It is perfectly possible to cook very well and never peel potatoes. I can't remember when I last peeled one. Many of us come from non-potato-based cultures.

That's what I mean AnnieK. You have to do things according to your own lights and your own abilities/time available. You shouldn't feel pressured into eg swimming lessons just because everyone else is having them and then feel guilty that you are a bad parent because you're having difficulty fitting the swimming into your work/home time.

I read this as adequate parrot.

I'm never going to be a half-decent parrot, I'm afraid. But I might manage OK parent - think it's about being interested, thinking ahead and loving them. And clean socks help.

The other thing is that if you are a working parent, you are making decisions about their childcare, and some of that might be around extracurricular activities etc, so it's not as if you don't do anything. On the older/younger child thing, I learnt to cook in a much more functional way than my sisters (my brother was at boarding school), as my mother was working full time when I was a teenager (she was a SAHM/part-time teacher until then) and I was expected to cook supper twice a week. My sister's on the other hand learnt to make cakes!

What's our job as a parent you asked.

For the lucky one's it is to facilitate our children to be adults capable of living a happy and fullfilled independent life in my book!

To me that encompasses laughter, sorrow, potatoes and the means to earn a reasonable living

I work almost full time and my children seem well adjusted, easy to please, happy children.

They can already peel pototoes, carrots, make cups of tea, understand that girls of 7 can be little b*tches and that tomorrow it'll be someone else in the firing line, so don't cry too hard for too long.

They know that they have to try their best most of the time, but also that the world won't fling them off if they flop out now and again 'cos its all gotten a bit too hard!

I'm enjoying being their Mum very much, and I think they enjoy having me as a Mum - most of the time, aferall, even us grown ups are perfect all the time

re potatoes and reading:

A friend of mine got a job as a chalet maid just after she left uni. I expressed surprise as I didn't know she cooked and she told me she had to do all these fancy meals. I knew she loved skiing. She could also read.

If you can read, you can cook..... She'd been told that at interview.