So these are my thoughts on parenting from someone whose only experience is a couple of times babysitting and reading about parenting. Wollstonecraft says "few parents think of addressing their children in the following manner, though it is in this reasonable way that Heaven seems to command the whole human race. it is in your interest to obey me till you can judge for yourself; and the Almighty Father of all has implanted an affection in me to serve as a guard to you whist your reason is unfolding; but when your mind arrives at maturity, you must only obey me, or respect my opinions, so far as they coincide with the light that is breaking in your own mind." I agree with Wollstonecraft that this is a method that is not as often seen in parenting. It sounds like a really good and reasonable way to parent a child but does it break down with confronted with the realities of kids? For example, my parents would try to explain why they wanted me to do something but when I really started to annoy them with a lot of queston it was always "because I said so!" I had to trust my parents knew best. in those situations even though it frustrated me that they would not explain. The second part of the quote where she talks about judging for yourself is something we all have to do eventually. The bible says: train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it, Proverbs 22:6. Right now we are at the ages that we are looking at the lives around us and seeing how different they are from how we grew up. Our world is growing bigger and we need to figure out what we believe in and what we don't.
I commented on Gray`s and Addison`s posts.
I commented on Gray`s and Addison`s posts.
Comments