Parenting today is much more challenging than it was in yesteryear. Why so?

Formerly, when a child came into this world, the entire extended family, and a part of the community participated in his / her upbringing. In fact it was a delight for the child’s aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends of the family and even the next door neighbors to play a part in caring for his / her needs. Subsequently, the guidance from others who have first hand knowledge, and many years of experience in child rearing, gives the new parents the help and support needed to carry out their role.

But much of that has changed in today’s nuclear world. We live in a transientsociety / world wherein a large portion of the population is “moving house” daily. Many people are moving away from the rural areas to the large urban cities.

Some move from developing countries to the more advanced, developed countries in search of better economic opportunities. Consequently, a large number of new parents today find themselves stranded, and facing the challenges of child rearing alone.

Compounding these challenges are the complexities of life found in large urban communities. An expensive apartment or a pricy mortgage takes up a huge portion of the family income. And when the budget cannot be balanced on just the earnings of the father alone, the mother is obliged to join him in the work force; leaving the needs of their children to be met by the fast growing Day Care industry/ Nursery schools.

Sometimes struggling, working parents find that their employment consume so much of their energy that when they get home they just do not have the physical vigor needed to train their children properly; and to teach them the real values that will give them a good sense of direction.

So some parents just delegate the training of their children to the care takers. Yet the giver of life, who blessed us with the ability to conceive and give birth to a child, said: “Parents should train their children when they sit in their house, when they lie down, when they get up, and when they walk on the road”, in short – every possible opportunity. So the onus is on the parents to train their children.

But while some working parents cannot muster up the energy to do the training themselves and the training of their children is being done by care-givers; the children will learn, and form much of their values based on what they see around them. When this progresses, the final analysis is a set of values based on those of the care-takers and the children’s friends; and not necessarily on parental standards. And this makes it very difficult for the parents to discipline their children.

The disciplining of children is also more challenging today than ever before because of the critical period in which we live. There is a wide spread wave of disobedience rebelliousness, and disrespectfulness permeating the world today. Some people deliberately disobey the law, others revolt against the government, and some yell profanity at one another as they drive on the roads. And children are master observers of this. They will try to imitate some of these things, and also some of the negative attitudes they see portrayed in the media through television programs, cartoons, and even the commercial advertisements that are designed to be humorous.

Additionally, stress from financial problems put more burden on the parents. Sometimes this leads to a crisis which ends up with a separation of the married mates. But, the family suffers a terrible blow when one of the mates commits adultery. When the act is discovered, the formerly pleasant family life takes a downward swing. The result is usually a divorce and the splitting up of the siblings; or divorce with a single parent family, wherein all of the children live together with one custodial parent.

The single parent who is raising this family faces many challenges. The most significant of all is assuming the role of both mom and dad, and having to make all of the decisions single-handedly. And some parents tend to use the children as tools to manipulate the other parent, especially if they do not like the custody arrangements made by the court.

These are only a few of the social and economic problems of today that affect the ability of parents to raise their children with less stress. Yet, these very problems that have such a remarkable impact on parenting today were very rear in the families of yesteryear