Chapter 12: Raising Children: Promises and Pitfalls

Summary:

This section focuses on raising children, specifically the promises and pitfalls of this topic. The book begins with a discussion of contemporary parenting roles. The point discussed here is of the “creation” of a parent. The book focuses on how parents internalize many of the parental roles they experience during this time, rather than simply performing these roles. However, the book discusses some rewards and difficulties of parenting as well. They are as follows:

· Role Conflict è The frustrations/uncertainties that one realizes when role expectations are incompatible.

· Role Strain è The conflicts one experiences within a specific role.

· Unrealistic Role Expectations è Society has unrealistic expectations that are unrealistic, leading to problems/frustrations.

· Decreased Authority è There is a belief that parents now have less authority than parents did in the past, leading to problems/frustrations.

· Increased Responsibility è There is a belief that though authority has decreased in recent time, responsibility has increased in more recent times.

· High Parenting Standards è Parents receive no real preparation for their new role they must fulfill, but they feel they must live up to very high standards.

Next, motherhood as ideal or realistic in perception, is discussed, along with fatherhood as well. These sections basically apply some of the points mentioned above, but also discussed some subsections of fatherhood, which are as follows:

· Breadwinner Fathers è View themselves as primary earner of the family, and view fatherhood in terms of economics.

· Autonomous Fathers è Seek freedom from family commitments and distance themselves from their children and their former spouse in the case of divorce.

· Involved Fathers è Believe that extensive participation in the life of the family is important in fatherhood.

The next section discussed were some theories on child development. They are as follows:

· Mead’s Theory of the Social Self è This theory focused on the adoption of the generalized other, or ability to understand the feelings, etc. of others not integral to the child’s development, and these generalized others influence the internalization of the child in terms of norms and values of the society.

· Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory è There were four main aspects to this theory, which are as follows:

o Acquisition of abilities such as differentiating oneself from the external world.

o Learning to use language and symbols.

o Understanding the perspective of another person.

o Learning to think and reason in abstract terms about the past/present/future.

· Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory of Development è Erikson views the world through eight individual stages, and the crisis outcome at each stage determines whether the individual will move on to the subsequent stage.

New/Interesting/Unusual Items Learned:

I found the discussion very interesting about the different ideas about child development. Many of these theories, though, are very basic in terms of their presentation in the book, and therefore it would have been a bit more interesting if they had been just a bit more in depth in nature.

Discussion:

Two aspects mentioned in the section going over some rewards and difficulties of parenting were decreased authority and increased responsibility. However, after reading this, I am not convinced that this is really the case, and it is more of an issue of “the grass is always greener” effect. Do any of you agree with this, or do you feel that this is the trend?

Karl Wahlen