Hi All. Hope you had a great holiday, and will have an excellent New Year. As promised when this blog was started, we’re going to start posting interesting tidbits we find in the world of parenting.
This article was posted on BabyCenter’s MOMformation(TM) blog:
Ready, set, grow up
Posted by Betsy Shaw in Caregivers, Children and happiness, Children’s Health, Current Events, Parenting | December 27th, 2009 | Trackback
During a Christmas Day sermon, Great Britain’s Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Rowan Williams) urged parents, and society in general, to stop forcing children to grow up too fast.
Williams points to what he views as a glaring sense of impatience in our society, especially when it comes to independence and maturity. It’s as if we see childhood as something that needs to be overcome, or grown out of, as soon as possible so we can get to the easier, more productive, grown- up stage.
I couldn’t agree more.
I’ve often wondered, since having babies, what the big hurry is. Parenting seems like a race from the get go: Who’s weaned, who’s potty trained, who’s sleeping alone all through the night, who’s reading chapter books? Whoever achieves independence first wins.
I’m certainly guilty of wishing certain stages, namely the relentlessly needy toddler years, to be over and done with, and I have been known to tell my still-whiny four-year-old she’s “not a baby anymore,” but I do try to constantly remind myself, and others, namely grandparents, not to expect my kids to act like mature adults when they so obviously are not.
This quote, from Williams, rings true:
“Parents should learn to enjoy their children’s dependence on them, instead of forcing them prematurely into independence.”
How do you feel about this? Do you think we expect too much of children? Have we lost perspective when it comes to just how much, and how long children need us, both physically and mentally, in order to feel secure. Do you ever catch yourself trying to get your kid, be he 2, 4 or 10, to “be a man, not a wuss?”
**Let me know what you think in our comments section
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