Outsourcing Parenting
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Outsourcing Parenting
| Fri, 08-31-2012 - 1:05pm |
Teaching your child to ride a bike is so passé. You may think it’s your job to teach balancing, pedaling, and breaking, but busy parents now have options.
Canadian writer Rebecca Eckler recently confessed to hiring a professional bike-riding counselor to school her daughter in the ways of training wheels and banana seats. Oh, the horror, right? What’s next — a professional Tooth Fairy and an after-school nurse to kiss boo-boos?
I just can't decide how I feel about this. One one hand, I know that my kiddos often learn things quicker and without expressing as much frustration, when someone other than my husband or myself teaches them. However, this just seems like... lazy parenting? What do you think?
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I do not see any issue with it. Just because someone is a parent it does not mean that they have the skill, personality, desire etc to do absolutely everything that falls under parenting. There are some things that either DH or I did based on who was best suited for it.
I don't see the big deal. It's like someone giving your kid piano or swimming lessons - if you lack the expertise, you pay someone else. Easy peasy!
At the place where my daughter gets her speech and OT therapies, they had several summer camp programs, one was called Yikes Bikes! and it was very popular. Lots of kids learned to ride, that's important!
Angie
If having someone else teach a child to ride is "outsourcing" what is day care? Has others have pointed out, we pay professionals for many services for our kids. Doesn't mean we're parenting any less.
Parenting is much more complex than teaching a child a specific skill. IMO, true parenting can't be outsourced. Bike riding skills? Piano lessons? Outsource away.
I see my kids as responsibilities. It is my responsibility that they learn manners and compassion and empathy and critical thinking skills. I try to view them objectively at times, like a future employer or life partner might and think, do I want to work with or be friends with that person? I try to treat them with respect and kindness so they learn that from me, but we talk a lot about how you behave towards others, about how to try to see things from others points of view. They also have rules and responsibilities they must follow.
I also realize that they are their own persons with their own personalities and there is only so much influence that I have. My mother often said, "Children grow up in spite of what we do, not because of what we do."
LOL the "mama stink eye" - my kids called it "the German look." They claim I have the same look that my dad and my grandmother all give members of the next generation as a warning to "shape up or you're in for a heap of trouble when we get home!" I don't know if I actually can produce "the German look" as well as my dad can (we grew up terrified of "the look"), but it worked to keep my kids in line most of the time.
Have you met my sister and her adopted son??