The Cause and Effect of Absent Parenting
Too Many young people- of all colors, and all walks of life-are growing up today unable to handle life in hard places, without hope, without adequate attention, and without steady internal compasses to navigate the morally polluted seas that must face on the journey to adulthood- Marian Wright Edelman
As I walk out the door of my South Central home on 38th Place near Western Ave, to go to work, I stop and reflect on what I see. It is an early Monday morning, the beginning of a new work and school week. Both of my parents have already left for their jobs, my sisters already on their way to school. What I see is very disappointing. I see a group of young boys around the age of 8 or 9 riding bikes, throwing rocks, and planning their next destructive move. Eight is the age when most young boys are in the 3rd grade, why is it that on my block, and many other blocks in the South Central Community many of the young people are not in school? The lack of parenting skills, especially in low-income urban areas, has contributed to a lack of education and proliferating ignorance.
Where are the parents? I ask myself this question every time I see young boys and girls who should be in school, not in school. It is the parents’ job and duty to make sure their child is in school. It is the law. I understand many parents work hard; sometimes two or three jobs to support their family, especially if the parent are raising two or three children by his or herself. That is still not an excuse for the lack of control that parents have over their children.
According to Dr. Anne-Marie Ambert, Professor in the Department of Sociology at York University, Toronto, where she has taught for over three decades, in her book The Effect Of Children on Parents,
Children’s first experiences mark them for life. Their personality is set in those few early years and their adult personality will not escape from this original mold. The child will repeat as an adult the initial parent-child interactions and will pursue the character traits imprinted upon him or her by the familial situation of these early years.
Is it possible for a child to grow up the opposite from what they were taught as a young child? Yes, it is possible, but highly unlikely. There is a vicious cycle, a cycle of deprivation. It is a cycle that just will not go away. A parent deprives their child of mental support, a lack of teaching morals and values. The parent does not work and sees nothing wrong with it. In return the child will grow up and view life the same way. That child will have children; act as their parents did. Their children, the third generation, will do the same thing. It is a cycle that will go on and on and on.
No one ever said that raising a child was easy or it was natural to know what to do. When people have trouble or do not know what to do, what is the most common solution? Ask for help. There are many ways which unprepared parents can become prepared. There are now classes for expecting parents and for those who currently are parents. There are free books, at the local library that can aid in the betterment of a parents role in the development of the child. In some instances the courts have ordered parents to take mandatory parenting classes. I am not saying all the answers can or will be found in a book or during a one-hour class. I am saying that the more information and knowledge one can attain, the better that person will be prepared for what ever will occur.
This world is made up of parents and children. There are many parents that are “bad” parents, but there are also many that are “good” parents. The bad parents are those who give up after one glance of adversity. The parents that do not instill values in their children at a young age. A bad parent is the one who gives up in him or herself and in the child. Those good parents are the ones that may not like adversity, but are up for the challenge and will try their best. The good parent is one that is there to listen, talk, and teach the child. If it is possible for one it is possible for all, given the right circumstances. These right circumstances deal with the correct social economic standard.
The absence of positive parent(s) affects the way the child will grow up putting the child at a higher risk of joining a gang and not completing school. I have seen the role of positive parents play an essential part of my growing up. I have something in common with the group of boys I saw playing around when they should have been in school. We all come from the same area, the same surroundings the same society. Why is it I am on my way to “making it out of the hood,” while they continue to bask in their ignorance and contribute to the hood’s degradation? The role my parents played in my life as I was growing up is why I know there is more to life than just what I see on the block. My parents have made a way for me. My parents have worked hard day in and day out to provide for me and my sisters. The way my parents made sure I was in school played a part, the way my parents disciplined me when I did not go well in school played a part. The way my parents raised me played a part. “The way my parents,” it is a cycle. It is a cycle I was fortunate to be a part of. Many of these young children, mostly African American and Hispanic, never had “the way my parents” did this or did that, in a positive way. They always had “my parents don’t care, my parents aren’t here, my parents don’t talk to me. That too is a cycle. Which cycle will be more helpful in the long run? Which cycle is geared towards making society a better place to live?
The lack of parenting skills and involvement in a child’s life may lead the child to do poorly in school and possibly join a violent street gang. Not getting an education at a young age puts children in a difficult position. My mother teaches, in adult education. In many of her students, positive parent involvement was not a part of their lives and has continued on into their own life, not being there for their children, because they work in the day and go to school at night. It is a vicious cycle that needs to be broken. This is an epidemic, which is spreading rapidly. When we spend so much money on trying to find a cure for the common cold, why is it that we do not spend enough money on this problem, especially in low-income urban areas, such as South Central Los Angeles?
Life can deal us a stressful hand sometimes. Do we continue to play or do we fold under pressure? When a person, I would say an adult, but these days, children are having children so its hard to say, lays down to consensually have sexual intercourse they are making themselves vulnerable to the possibility they may become a parent. If in fact that were to happen the new “proud” parent has to take his or her hand and play it to the best of his or her ability. They, the parent(s) waived their rights to an opinion when they decided to have consensual sexual intercourse. They must now face reality and take care what is theirs. I agree with Marian Wright Edelman, Yale Law School graduate, first African American woman admitted to the Mississippi bar and author of The Measure of Our Success, who says, “it is the responsibility of every adult especially parents to make sure that children hear over and over that we love them and that they are not alone” (15). Parents have a job to do. Unlike a normal job, a parent cannot quit or even get fired. Although there are many parents that need to be fired and never rehired again. If you cannot stand the smell of the diaper do not become a parent.
“In the mid-1960’s, urban analysts began to speak of a new dimension to the urban crisis in the form of a large subpopulation of low-income families and individuals whose [negative] behavior contrasted sharply with the [positive] behavior of the general population (Wilson 3). The negative behavior, which is spoken of stems from somewhere. This somewhere is parenting. In some cases a low-income family cannot help their unstable financial situation, but in other cases they can. When parents are not working, not because they are hindered by physical or mental ailments, but because they are lazy and see no reason to work when they can have money sent to them twice a month. Once on the 1st and the other on the 15th, all thanks due to the tax paying citizens. This indirect teaching is what the child picks up on. There is a direct link as to how the parent acts and how the child reacts. In most cases the cliché’ phrase, “just a chip off the old block” comes into play. The parent does not work; the child grows up with this sense of lackadaisical attitude towards any form of education and ultimately work. In the long run, affecting the entire society. Making that person an economical leach and strain on society, but until something or someone is able to change the mindset, we shall expect nothing but the worst.
Author and journalist for The New York Times and USA Today Charles Sykes, has an idea that I firmly agree with. The idea of “Dumbing Down Our Kids.” In his book Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves, but Can’t Read, Write, or Add he offers many results for the cost of this dumbness. Less than 10% of seventeen-year-olds can do “rigorous” academic work in “basic” “subjects”. In the United States today, only one in five nine-year-olds can perform even basic mathematical operations. According to the 1990 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), only one in six nine-year-olds reads well enough to search for specific information, interrelate ideas, and make generalizations. Only one high school junior out of fifty (2%) can write well enough to meet national goals. What happens when these children get older and become active adults in the working world? According to Sykes, American businesses are now spending $30 billion on workers’ training and lose an estimated $25 billion a year as result of their workers’ weak reading and writing skills. A survey by the National Association of Manufactures found that nearly a third of American business said the learning skills of their workers are so low that they are unable to reorganize work responsibilities. In a recent year, the Bellsouth Corporation in Atlanta found that fewer than 10% of their job applicants met minimal levels of ability for sales, service, and technical jobs. At the same time, MCI Communications in Boston reported that some of its jobs were going unfilled because the company could not find enough qualified applicants. It is a vicious cycle that can all be traced back to a lack of parents instilling values and morals into their children.
There is the parent that is in denial. They know their child is not in school, runs the streets late at night, and are always getting into trouble. Stephen Butler Leacock (1869-1944), University of Chicago graduate school student, writer, and economist, once said, “The parent who could see his boy as he really is, would shake his head and say: “Willie is no good; I’ll sell him.”’ If the parent is finally willing to see what is reality and stop living in a fantasy world of denial and see who their child really is, that parent may see what a terrible job they did as a parent and possibly may be a step ahead in the race of becoming better parents. Linda and Richard Eyre leaders in the national movement toward more involved parenting, suggest, “this permissive parenting has produced a generation of young adults who have broken all records for drug abuse, family instability, suicide, and (though it is less quantifiable) unhappiness” (21). This approach is a catastrophic mistake. Parents need not to roll over and play dumb. They need to stand up, accept responsibility, stop looking for free handouts, and take care of their children. It is not the child’s fault. They did not ask to be here. It is a sad situation that affects us all. Socially, economically, and mentally we are all involved. There is the old proverb it takes a village to raise a child. That is possibly true. If we are affected directly or indirectly, we may want to get involved. I still hold strong that it is primarily the parent’s task and not the community. There needs to be a positive change. Bell Hooks, distinguished Professor of English at City College in New York and author of Teaching to Transgress, says “these days, I am compelled to consider what forces keep us from moving forward, from having that revolution of values what would enable us to live [better]” (29). I too wonder this same thing. If there is something out there that could better my life, I should try to find a way to get it. Parents need to find a way to better their children’s lives. If they do not they are not only failing their child, but also themselves.
As I walk out the door of my South Central home on 38th Place near Western Ave, to go to work, I stop and reflect on what I would like to see. It is an early morning, the beginning of a new work and school week. Both of my parents have already left for their jobs, my sisters already on their way to school. What I would like to see is very pleasing. I see a group of boys around the age of 8 or 9 sitting on their bikes as they wait for a friend to come out the house so they can go to school. I see parents packing their children’s backpack in the trunk of the car as parent and child venture out to go to work and to school. Why is it that on my block, and many other blocks in the South Central Community many of the young people are in school? The role of positive and active parenting in low-income urban areas has contributed to an abundance of top scholars and proliferation of knowledge.
Sources:
Ambert, Anne- Marie PhD. The Effect of Children on Parents. 2nd Ed. New York: The Hayworth Press, Inc., 2001.
Bartlett, John. Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations 16th ed. Toronto: Little Brown & Company (Canada) Limited, 1992.
Edelman, Marian Wright. The Measure of Our Success: A Letter to my Children and Yours. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992.
Eyre, Linda and Richard. Teaching Your Children Values. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.
Hooks, Bell. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom: New York: Routledge, 1994.
Sykes, Charles J. Dumbing Down Our Kids: What American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can’t Read, Write, or Add. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1995.
Wilson, William J. The Truly Disadvantage: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987.
Commentary: The current situation of parenting is so so terrible This cycle really needs to stop I don't know if young people just need to stop fucking so our kids are not have kids or something
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