Parenting is a hard work

Hello everyone!

This topic centered on parenting coincidentally aligns with a discussion I listened to on Monday afternoon. It was on a radio program where a report was read about an 8-year-old boy who wrote a love letter to his girlfriend—one so well-written that even adults might struggle to compose something similar. After reading the letter, the host opened the phone lines for contributions, particularly on how parents should react if they were in such a situation and who should be blamed for a child having such depth of romantic expression at such a young age.

Honestly, when I heard the letter being read, I was amazed at the way the words were put together. Maybe AI helped him generate it, but the expression felt real. It did not contain big, complicated grammar—just a normal way of expressing one's feelings.

While many callers blamed the parents for giving the child too much freedom, others took the blame off the parents and placed it on the era and society we live in today.

The truth is, parenting is very hard. Even when you closely monitor your children and guide them carefully, they can still surprise you by picking up unexpected knowledge from outside your home, especially from school. On the other hand, if you decide to give them some freedom and expose them to technology at an early age—even with parental controls—they can still find ways to explore deeply without their parents knowing.

I am not married yet and do not have children of my own, but I have played a significant role in raising my younger siblings, especially when we lived together in the village. There were many habits and behaviors my parents did not know about until we, the older siblings, told them. This was because we were closer to our younger ones in a way that our parents were not.

Ideally, a balance should exist between strict supervision and allowing children some level of freedom, while also maintaining a good relationship with them so they feel comfortable being open with their parents. However, achieving this balance is almost impossible. One approach will always seem excessive, while the other may appear too relaxed.

I have a family I am close to in this city where I live. The level of control they impose on their children is just too excessive. They never allow them to play with other kids in the neighborhood. These children are undoubtedly smart in their education and communication skills, but when you observe closely, they appear dull in social interactions. They lack basic social skills.

I have stylishly suggested to the parents that they should give their children a little more freedom, but they insist that socializing with other kids will spoil them. I simply agreed with them and kept quiet.

To be fair, from their perspective, they might be right. Maybe they believe that the socialization their children get from school is enough, and there is no need to allow them to mingle with other neighborhood kids. Maybe they have a point. But this also highlights the issue of lack of freedom in parenting.
In our days, there were a lot of ideas and life hacks we got through the little freedom we got from parents to mingle with other children. Also, there were negative things we got too.

Abeg, parenting is hard! It's almost impossible to be perfect in it.

Thanks for reading

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