HW #58 Parenting 102

Part 3:

From interviewing the parents, Mrs. Plaza and Mr. Marks, it had seem that they want to raise their child with their babies inner personalities/identities develop and having their children become their own selves. However, they still apply rules and certain "dream" and ideas of theirs onto their children. I always wonder why do parents always put their dreams and ideas onto their children? And then the children would feel pressure and things will change, either rebel against it or etc. When Mr. Marks said he is picking for the conservation cultivation, which is to "coach them how to interact" and to gain different reasoning abilities, I thought that was cool. However, one thing that Mr. Marks said about that I did not think of was that to treat the babies as "science project[s]". We can do research about it and find all the equations into guessing what the babies needs are during that single moment, but because all babies are quite different, many of the results are still unknown. Therefore, doing research can only help us this far into parenting and that we must be prepare with tests and stuff, like what Mr. Marks and his wife did and the depression period after birth might do to the parents. After hearing about his and his wife's experience, and remembering from last year's birth unit, we cannot really say that birth is a good thing until we pass all the obstacles in getting the baby out into the world.

Questions that classmates ask about parenting is what sort of parenting helps a kid become a differentiated self? And I think during the interviews, Mrs. Plaza and Mr. Marks answered the questions in their own ways and their thoughts during their research on their kids. Mrs. Plaza is a person that lets her child learn on their own, and not to be constantly corrected and walk away to let the child cry all she wants. (By the way, both of their kids are girls ^-~) Additionally, she's one of those parents who mind their own business because during the interview, she said, she interact with other parents by "their house, their rules" and "I don't critique their style [of parenting] unless abusive [blah blah blah]". But how do parents create these rules and why they mind their own business when parents go research on other parents' styles of things? Is it more helpful that way for parents to understand but once the child is out, and growing, the parents begins to experienced more of what it is like to be a parent, and create their own rules by their standards. Or is it by how they were raised and and how their parents treat them, does how the parents were parented affect how they parent?

Part 4:

Through the parenting mini unit, I learned that we do not know what it is like to be a parent or how to do the parenting until we become parents. It is difficult to become one and those who are still being parented would not be able to understand what parents go through until we fully become parents. Even with all the research we do to provide a good care to our babies, we are probably still fifty percent unsure whether it will work the way we want because babies are all different and it is not easy for the first or second or third time to succeed. That is why parents are becoming scientists in a way, to view like their babies similar to "science projects" (Mr. Marks). It is helpful to think that way because it is to improve the parents observance on their babies closer than researching. By observing our babies closer, us parents can discover more sides to our babies and the parent-child relationship would be closer and balance as well. We might become slaves to our children's needs but then when the children begin to grow up, they would be partially slaves to our hopes and needs. Additionally, it is not about the ways that we do can make the babies feel better but it is how much feelings we put into the ways and our love for our babies that can make the babies feel happy. Then in return, we feel happy than frustrated.

Listening from the parents and other classmates' ideas on their parenting styles, I started thinking about how much can I provide to my child that can let the child grow up their own ways without too much of my interference. But I wonder how little interference can I do that would not make my child feel lonely and not feel stressed. Of course, I have hopes for my child but listening to Mr. Marks and Mrs. Plaza that they would optimize their children's strengths and let them learn what they are going through, it is possible that differentiated children would grow more from their children. And that is what is an insight that I want and hope that it will work once I have a child. Besides that, influences would occur as children begin to grow and change them but it will be helpful for myself to remind myself that I should keep telling my child to be his/her self. This also help me teach myself to learn to give more comfort and patience because it is not easy for the children to go through all by themselves. Another insight that I found is that having a child is like splitting from the mother, or from both the parent and so, the parents have to care for their child like they care for themselves. They may act badly sometimes to their children but it is a way to tell or reflect on how they are taking care of their children. If both the parents and the child can live happily together without judging whether each of them are doing something bad, but listen and understand each other more through both of their own inner selves and for both of them to have more conversation can lead to a closer, more trustworthy and lighter load on the intertwining relationship of parent and child.