Parenting is probably the hardest thing on earth.
Because although most parents do take it very seriously, and do genuinely just want what's best for their son, daughter, or children, they nevertheless struggle with it. Because it IS very hard.
Kids often resist, and struggle and fight, and parents do the same. Inevitably, over the course of 18 years or however more, real difficulties arise, and real harm is done to that once little kid you just wanted to love and protect and comfort.
I think this is largely due to the misunderstood nature of parenting. As parents they simply want a bright future for their children, for them to become as they hope and as they designed. But to that end mistakes are made, and I believe it is because the premise from which that parenting takes place is misguided.
This disconnect is seen most clearly in adolescence, when the kid begins to assert themselves; when he or she begins to believe and feel that they are grown,yet also see finally that they have none of the freedom or independence that normally results in.
And so they push their parents. And their parents push back.
Because to them, their child is not mature - perhaps for his age, but not yet enough for the world. They don't believe their child is responsible enough or ready enough to be as free as he or she desires. This kid still needs to be protected from his own immaturity. He or she still needs to be protected from the world.
And so they establish rules and boundaries; things they need to do and things they are forbidden from doing; places they can go and places they cannot; friends they can have and those they must avoid.
And while these actions may indeed save them from some mistake or degree of pain, I think they do nothing to improve or mature the child.
Because while it may help to protect them in the short-run - tomorrow, today, immediately - it does more to harm them inevitably. It robs them of the experience of that mistake, and the lesson of that decision. It does nothing to teach them of the responsibility and consequence of independence and of their actions. It does nothing to make a boy a Man and a girl a Woman.
The role of a parent is not the protector. It is not their job to shelter their children from the evils of the world or from their own mistakes. Their job is to prepare them for those mistakes. It's to prepare them for the difficulties of the world, from which you can not long shield them.
Adam Alvarado is the founder of, and principal contributor to The Last Broken Home, a self development blog dedicated to his journey from teenage depression to self esteem.
Central to the site is the idea that all people all people, regardless of parental participation and quality, are raised in an environment that in some way proves an obstacle to their full and complete emotional and mental maturity; that the tendency for anxiety and depression, indecision and stagnation found in most adults is best explained through the learned behaviors of their youth, and therefore best addressed there in others.
Read more about How to Be a Good Parent
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