Who doesn’t love babies? I sure do, but I am nowhere near ready to be a parent. I don’t know the first thing about parenting. Yeah, I know no one really knows how to raise children until they have one, but I’m basically still a child myself. For example, I took a roommate to the store yesterday, and I didn’t need to buy anything. Heck, I don’t have the money to buy anything, yet I came home with the biggest roll of ready to bake cookie dough because it sounded good. I also got out of bed at 4pm today, and I have 3 hours to write this post because sleep was a bigger priority today.
Okay enough about my college life for now… let’s talk about the some of the purposes of parenting. Why do we parent? Heck, what even is parenting? Is it teaching kids, if it is, what exactly are we responsibly for teaching them? In class, we decided that the purpose of parenting is to protect and prepare children to survive and thrive in the world they are going to be living in.There are countless ways to do this, and each family’s situation is and will be different so I’m not going to touch on the steps, for lack of a better word, on how to raise children. Even if there were “steps” every family could follow, children are their own people with the ability to make their own choices. Parenting is about teaching, not controlling and forcing.
First, I will talk about some of the purposes of parenting for a child’s benefit. Parent’s choose whether or not they are a good, or arguably the best, example for their children. Kids look up to their parents, and they. see. every. thing. Not only see everything, but they learn from everything they see, whether they are conscious of it or not. I’ve seen this with my youngest sister. She is nine years younger than me, and she’s now ten. She’s doing things now that I did when I was younger and still living at home. Even now, while I’m living 500 miles away, I have been told she looks up to me, and wants to be like me when she grows up. As parents’ it’s also our job to teach them about Jesus Christ, and encourage them to become disciples of Christ, who is the ultimate perfect example.
Now onto what parenting teaches parents. The love a parent has for their child is the closest thing to feeling Heavenly Father’s love for His children (which is each and every one of us here on Earth). Parents also have the chance to learn and better solidify their patience and humility while parenting children. While as parents, we will be doing most of the teaching, our children will often surprise us and teach us things that we did not know.
As a 19 year old, who is more single than the sad half of an Oreo in the bottom of the bag (with no cream on it) I feel really weird talking about parenting. It was kind of cool to learn about it, but I think I’m good with what I have until I get closer to having a child/ren.
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