Library Collections: Document: Full Text

FROM every side, parents are being chastised, admonished, cajoled; patted on the back and slapped on the wrist; threatened as the spoilers of the nation and pitied as the victims of their own children.

Through the popular magazines, through radio and television and an unending line of books, an ever increasing pressure is brought to bear on parents. To be sure, much that is sane and helpful is being offered, accepted with understanding, and put to good use. But, unfortunately, in sheer quantity this is increasingly being outweighed by the extremist statements that may become the curse of our times.

On the one extreme, we have the sweetness-and-light approach of those who fill the airwaves and the pages of books and magazines with offers of pat formulas for happiness, success, and a sure way to heaven. At the other extreme, there are those who point with alarm and speak with a voice of doom and who, under the guise of helpfulness, really are nothing short of destructive.

The true expert, the person who proceeds from the vantage point of scientific study and careful observation, is not given to broad statements and easy formulas; he knows only too well the manifold factors that are of significance in individual development, as well as in family living.

Child rearing has not been the only field where "half-baked" knowledge, offered through the mass media in sensational style and often prematurely, has caused confusion. We have seen the same in the field of medicine, with only this vital difference -- there the quack is readily exposed for his lack of solid knowledge and tested experience.

Much, then, as we have to reject the oversimplified and over-generalized statements of the pseudo-expert, there is no denying that we are in an era of significant shifts in family living which cannot help but be perplexing to parents.

Parental Roles Changing

First and foremost, we are witnessing basic changes in the roles of the two marriage partners -- the father and the mother. From the old family constellation in which, at least outwardly, the father was the breadwinner and the head of the household, with the mother assuming responsibility for child rearing and home management, we are moving to a marriage relationship that is based on an increasingly equal partnership.

The old tales of the inferiority of the woman are melting away slowly under objective, scientific scrutiny. It is hard to speak of the physical inferiority of the woman when after a strenuous life of child rearing and household management she outlives her husband by many years. It is hard to deny her social and political competence when so much of significant community advance is due to her efforts. It is hard to picture her as a helpless, mechanically inept creature when she manages an imposing array of household machinery. It is hard to maintain she is not versed in fiscal affairs when, in many households, it is she who manages the budget and handles the money.

The pictures of the ideal woman and the ideal man in the minds of our people come closer and closer together as they come to learn more. Women have now proved amply that they, too, can be self-assertive, planful, aggressive, and able to withstand pressures. Men, on the other hand, no longer look on patience, kindness, and gentleness as exclusively feminine characteristics. Again we must beware of distortion. There is no claim that men will cease to be males and women females and that they will be replaced by a nondescript, synthetic "third sex." But it is time to recognize that the existence of some definite differences between the sexes does not warrant the exaggerated dividing lines the moralists of former generations have drawn in creating the old stereotypes of male and female virtues. Perhaps the most striking example of this shift in parental roles is the increasing participation of the father in the care of the infant children, once exclusively the woman's job.

Rapid Pace Brings Confusion

Another shift which we can begin to discern in this world of changing values relates to the parents' concept of their role as bearers of cultural traditions. Today, change takes place at so rapid a pace, and in such radical ways, that the connecting link from generation to generation must of necessity be flexible. But seeing the need for this and acting upon it are two quite different things. Might we not ascribe some of the confusion of parents in dealing with their children to their uncertainty as to just how far they must still impose their own standards and how far they must loosen the reins to equip their children to adjust to the new and different world in which they will live? Is this not one of the reasons why parents today are more uncertain than were their elders as to how far to control the lives of their teen-agers?

And in still another aspect, parents are responding to the impact of change around them. They no longer find full satisfaction in consuming themselves in sole preoccupation with the task of child rearing. Increasingly they pursue mutual interests as husband and wife, which are apart from their parental life and yet enrich it. Again, this does not imply any rejection of their role as parents; it is a shift from the rigid ideal of the past toward a broader life fulfillment.

One of the strange contradictions in the recent attacks on parents is that they have been simultaneously accused of being neglectful of their duties and of being overconcerned with their responsibilities. It would be an idle task to speculate whether today's parents or those of yesteryear showed more devotion to their children. But in one respect parents today seem to have enlarged their ambition: aware that new scientific knowledge can contribute much to child rearing, they want to acquire and utilize this knowledge. It is well-nigh impossible to estimate the number of parents involved today in the wide spread of parent-education activities. Parents seek this guidance not to shed their responsibilities, but to do them more justice.

One of the earliest thoughts parents absorbed from the field of child guidance was that of the child's basic need for security which today has become the most widely accepted principle of child care. Yet in recent years even this cardinal principle has been attacked, often as violating what its critics saw as the American spirit of rugged individualism and independence. It seems appropriate, therefore, in this discussion of parental ideals, to underline its importance. It is, of course, precisely this ultimate objective of independence and mature functioning which requires for its attainment an uninhibited sense of utter security in the infant. Once he has absorbed it, he will be able to venture forth, with the parents' guidance, slowly developing his sense of responsibility.

The concept of security is close to the development of responsibility, and the word responsibility, of course, leads straight-away to the controversial problem of discipline. The problem lies not so much in the lack of a proper ideal, but rather in the parents' quandary in finding new ways of discipline appropriate to today's pattern of family life. Many public officials, distinguished jurists, and civic leaders are demanding that we go "back to the woodshed." But parents' ideals do have to be adjusted to our changing world.

Out of "the Sunny Past"

I served recently as a participant on a panel discussing juvenile delinquency. One of the other panel members was a police official. All evening he had followed a rather progressive line in his comments but toward the end, in response to a challenge, he suddenly burst out with the statement: "Of course I really think that, for some of those boys, a horse whipping would do an awful lot of good."

I immediately said to him that my boy certainly wouldn't mind getting a horse whipping from me. Knowing my views on corporal punishment, the man eyed me suspiciously and then said, "There's some trick behind this."

I responded, "By all means. You see, if I would give my son a horse whipping we would have to have a horse whip, and if we would have a horse whip we would have a horse and buggy and a big barn and a yard. All those things you enjoyed in your youth, and if my son had all those privileges, he indeed would not mind a horse whipping. But what you are trying to do is to bring out of your sunny past just the horse whip and not what goes with it."

This personal anecdote underlines how foolish one can be by looking back to the good old days. Nonetheless, the voices demanding "the woodshed" are growing stronger, and parents will need help and reassurance in holding fast to the gains that have been made. To be sure, the parent knows about children -- many children -- and from careful study he has acquired knowledge which is not available to the parent, and yet may be essential to deal with the child's problem.

Parent education today is becoming as much a part of the American scene as health education has been since it became accepted decades ago. Good parent education does not minimize the parents' role; on the contrary, it tries to enhance and strengthen it. Good parent education does not aim at supplanting the parents' individual ideas with "packaged" products; instead, it recognizes its auxiliary role and directs its efforts toward helping parents to define and pursue their own ideals in this world of changing values.