Mistakes in parenting: a man’s view
What a fatal mistake many women make when raising children, says journalist and father Yevgeny Obolensky.
From time to time, all parents ask themselves: “How do I want to see my child when he grows up?” I have an answer to this question: I want my daughter to grow up as a free person in the first place.
When Eva and my wife were born and we all began to travel together, I began to pay more attention to European children and their parents. And I realized how they are very different from the Russian ones. A Western child can sit on the floor in an electric train, shout at the whole street, hang upside down on a horizontal bar. And mom and dad will not say a word to him, but will continue to look into a smartphone or communicate with friends. I am sure that this is not indifference, they say, whatever the child is having fun, as long as it does not touch me. This is their principled position.
Parents from Russia, as a rule, are outraged by such behavior of European children. “They don’t know how to behave at all. I would have given it to mine already! ” – the Russian mother whispers in her ear according to her nodding husband. By the way, after one incident, my wife also considers European children ill-mannered. Once in Spain, my daughter and I walked on the playground, where mostly locals played (because we lived with friends, and not in the epicenter of a resort town). The children were noisy and rushed from one attraction to another. And so one of the boys went up to the swing, on which Eva was sitting, and sat down next to her – priest to priest. The daughter considered it impudence and left. My wife, naturally, thought that the baby had been kicked out, and she was also upset. And the mother of the “bully” just stood aside and smiled.
If such a situation had occurred in Russia, then the boy’s parent would have immediately shamed him. When we walk with Eve on the playground in Russia, the clucking of mother-hens over their children does not stop for a minute: “Don’t shout!”, “Don’t run!”, “Don’t go there!”, “Be more collected!”. The child cannot take a step without running into another shout.
Less frames, more freedom
We come up with a bunch of unnecessary restrictions and ourselves cultivate complexes in our children that will remain with them for life. If my child does not want to walk by the hand, but wants to run ahead, what’s wrong with that? What is wrong if it rolls over in the sand? Why, if she wants to step into a puddle, should I read her morals?
The only thing when I harshly jerk my child if she does something that will threaten her life and health, for example, climbs onto the windowsill and tries to open the window or runs out onto the roadway. Otherwise, no problem.
I do not really think that anything I have listed is bad parenting. The child must fill his own bumps. For me, it’s okay if he falls and breaks his nose. He himself will be able to draw the correct conclusions, and my task is to push the child towards them, without imposing my adult opinion.
Unfortunately, our society and social institutions like to drive people into frames. Especially in this matter, kindergartens and schools are zealous – they seem to set themselves the task of raising obedient and equal citizens! Therefore, we, parents, first of all should be more tolerant of the little person who is just beginning to get to know this world.