Chapter 12!

1. Summary

There are many challenges to becoming a parent. There is role strain (such as finding the balance between being a friend and a parent to a child), unrealistic role expectations (the stress of possibly "failing" at being a parent), decreased authority (they feel they have less control over their children than did parents in the past), increased responsibility, and they have to live up to very high parenting standards. Becoming a mother is often very difficult because there are three myths that burden the majority of society's mothers: the mother will be perfect if she "follows her instincts", she must devote all of her time to her kids, and the discouragement of the involvement of other adults (surprisingly, including fathers). Similarly, fathers have strains on them as well: they fell as if they must choose between providing for the family, separating himself from his family ("deadbeat" dads), or being involved only enough to satisfy their spouse and child. Parenting varies between different economic classes of families. Low income families typically cannot offer as many opportunities to their children as higher class families can, and they also must experience many external stresses from the environment due to their financial state such as high-crime neighborhoods. Middle class families have more resources, are more likely to seek professional advice on how to properly raise a child, and are able to present their children with more opportunities. Lastly, high income families are able to present the most opportunities for their children. They are also more likely to read to their children, take them to different places, and view the least amount of television. There are many changes in relationships between the parents and child as the child ages. Some changes include: the relationship between the parents and the child, challenges involved in parenting (helicopter parents, etc), and stresses on the parents. In lesbian and gay families, parents act similarly to heterosexual couples raising children. However, the children sometimes act differently. One 8-year-old said that she doesn't care that she has two moms. However, when kids are older, they sometimes feel ashamed and try to hide the fact that they have two same sex parents. Mostly, however, the kids grow up with open minds due to the different views they experienced as a child. Parents with gay or lesbian children do not always know that their child is not heterosexual. When a child does tell their parents, some parents react negatively which causes many children to not be quite as open about their sexuality. There are four different parenting styles--authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and uninvolved. They vary from the stereotypical helicopter parent that wishes to run the child's life, to the parent that doesn't know where their child is half the time. Commonly, children whose parents are often too busy to interact them have started to place them in front of the television. It is advised that kids under two be shown no media (from any type of screen), but ⅔ of kids under two are watching three hours of TV a day.

2. Interesting

I'm a psychology major, and I loved how much psych research was brought in! From Erikson to Baumrind, I loved the actual research and theories brought into the text. I was pleasantly surprised :)

3. Questions

If you have kids, what type of the four parenting style do you expect you will use on your child? Why?