PARENTING AS I SEE IT #30DaysOfNovember

BY Ife Adeoti-Adeagbo

Productive Parenting as I see it…

Who earns the right to be called a parent? Any man matured enough to donate a viable sperm to make a baby? Or any woman who is able to keep an embryo in her womb long enough to bring about a child?

What makes a productive parent? Is it providing food and shelter as much as you can? Is it providing solid education to the best of your ability? Is it giving discipline and punishment when the child misbehaves? Is it giving the child enough money anytime asked?

These questions are very important because we silently judge our parents and judge ourselves as parent based on the answer we give them?

My next question is: who sets the standard? Where do parents get their education from? Is parenting just a natural role or a profession to take responsibility for and study? Who assesses a successful parent? Who chastises or correct the errors of parents? Or are they infallible, flawless and fail-safe? Who can a child report to when he feels ill-treated and abused even by his parent?

I cannot answer all of these questions and many more but this is productive parenting as I see it….

Productive parenting is giving a viable DNA or stretching to adopt one into your space. It is putting food on the table and clothes on the body. It is cooking the meals, cleaning the house and caring for the soul.  Productive parenting is making survival and security both in the present and for the future possible. It is ensuring that there is material provision and protection from all forms of physical harm.

Yet it is going beyond the peripheral and the surface, it is moving past the necessities and drilling deeper into the core of parenting. Productive parenting is giving more than fishes to teaching how to fish. Productive parenting is being the source and therefore helping the child to connect her true identity. It is creating an environment where authenticity and genuineness can thrive. If a child has to pretend in his/her home, then I question that parenting style and substance.

Productive parenting is protecting from emotional and spiritual harm. Sensitivity is the tool and compassion is the way. This parenting breeds pure and wise children not innocently naïve ones who fall prey to every deception. This parenting does not create vulnerable children by ignorance and self-satisfaction but it goes ahead of its offspring, travels the journey and comes back to take along with careful instructions and direction.

This parenting is about being matured enough to have the adult language but skillful enough to speak the child’s language in order to communicate effectively. It identifies the uniqueness of each of the entity within its dwelling, respects individual’s space and celebrates the exclusivity in everyone. This does not allow for anyone to be oppressed by the shadow of another’s strengths or to feel empowered only by feasting on other’s weakness because everyone is rare, matchless and exceptional.

Productive parenting transcends flesh and blood, instincts and ego; it seeks to live a worthy life, reproduce itself uniquely through its offspring and leave a legacy. It is not a matter of age or marital status; it is about being the source and sustainer of worthy citizens.

NOTE BY LORDJOSH:  In case you missed the news, I am stepping up this writing game and I am launching my website on the 1st of December. Get a dose of the madness and subscribe here and get DEMONS ON CHURCH STREET eBook for free.

SCHOOL AS I SEE IT #30DaysOfNovember

BY Modupe Fadipe

I think one of the priceless moments I enjoy is when a child keeps asking you countless questions and oh my… you dare not be unable to provide the most appropriate answers. And the amazing thing is how hard it is for that child to forget what you have just said. It’s like this new generation of children have an incredible level of intelligence. You can have a beautiful conversation without even realising that you are speaking with a five (5) year old.

So I begin to wonder is it because they now teach Ah, Be, Ce, De in place of the A for apple, B for Ball that we were familiar with.  Or maybe it’s the technology age that is making these children extraordinarily intelligent and fun to chat with. I mean a four (4) year old child can operate your iPad or laptop with amazing dexterity, and in little or no time at that.

Why then do we make such big deal out of this education thing? Why must a child who used to be so excited to learn grow into having low self esteem after realizing that he/she can never be in the first ten (10) positions in his class? Is education all about teaching the ABCDs and the 123s? Is it about Science class being better than Art class? Oh, maybe it is the fact that the best and most brilliant attend Federal Government Colleges while the over pampered ones attend the Private Schools, and the less privileged ones end up in the Public Schools.

Education can’t really be all about how many As you get in your SSCE result or the efforts one has to put to get a  3.5 CGPA at the end of your 1st degree (2nd Class Upper) only to finish with a 3.45 (2nd Class Lower) and the labour market becomes a place where the once bright child starts to drag his feet searching for a job.

I mean after all those long queues in the sun during registration, the endless search for a signature on course forms. Let’s not even mention those final year students who fill your thoughts with how eager failure is waiting for you and how you can never pass some particular courses. Oh, the terror in the voices of those lecturers. And the “I too know”s (ITKs) who do a good job of making everyone look stupid. Those long nights of dozing off in night class, wishing the exam cross would just pass you by.

Is school just a discriminating agent of categorization? I mean it’s not just about getting a paper that says she is better than you because she made a first class or He is very intelligent because he studied Medicine or they are so learned because they have a Bachelor’s degree in Law. I am sure the word education weighs a lot more than all this.

I believe that education is an eternal process where we grasp for happiness after every few stops. How do I mean? Education is what you give that child when he asks. “Hey aunty, grandma is my mummy’s mum, why?”  It is what we tell that 13 year old teenage girl when she starts to wonder when to have a boyfriend because she has such uncontrollable rush of passion.  It is how to teach that teenage boy why it’s not time to have sex and it’s not just because it is the Christian thing to do. It could be how you teach your aged mother how to put a comment on Facebook and she brightens up. It should be in how you can tell a stranger that her button is loose or his trouser zip is open.

Education is what it takes to impact lives, putting smiles on people’s faces every single day by that one thing they heard or read that would stay with them forever. Not that we have all the answers but that we can at least help and share what we know that other people do not. That should be the robe of graduation we wear .

 

It’s that one moment of happiness you enjoy when someone says, “Thank you, I would not have known that if not for you”. That is the certificate we should carry around.

P.S. In case you missed the news yesterday, we will be launching http://www.lordjoshwrites.com on the 1st of December. It is time to step this up. Be an early subscriber, click here and get DEMONS ON CHURCH STREET eBook for free.