RAISING KIDS

When a couple brings a child into the world, they under- take an awesome responsibility. All parents discover that raising kids is a huge and complex task which may extend over a period of twenty years. Good parents try to be sensitive to all their children's needs. They feed and clothe them, provide toilet training and table manners, and give the love, discipline, and guidance children need until they are mature enough to take control of their own lives. Disagreements about child-rearing practices often occur as each parent tries to bring the children up according to his or her own parents' example of how to raise a family. Parents usually try to present a united front, however, so that the children feel there is one set of rules for how to behave properly.

The traditional family structure of most societies had the father away from home all day at his job being the "breadwinner," while the mother stayed home and took care of the children. Today an increasing number of mothers are also employed outside of the home. This is usually due to expanded opportunities for women, the couple's desire to maintain a certain lifestyle, or economic necessity. The structure of the family is further affected as the divorce rates keep rising, and more and more families are headed by working women. These women must usually abandon the role of full-time mother in order to support the family, since the absent father's alimony payments are not enough to live on.

In families where neither parent stays home, alternative childcare must be considered for children not yet in school. When possible, a live-in maid or a relative can act as babysitter. In some countries, day-care centers are becoming widespread; some are private, some government-subsidized, and some attached to work sites. Centers with proper sanitary standards, good facilities, and enough trained workers can be a pleasant environment for children to play with others their own age. On the other hand, not all young children adjust easily to staying in a day-care center; it is upsetting to them, and they feel abandoned by their parents.
Many school-age children of working parents arrive home before the parents do and are on their own for an hour or more. Some experts wonder whether these "latchkey children," alone in a house with no adult supervision, have too much responsibility placed on them. They question whether the special hour of "quality time" planned with the children later in the evening can make up for the large quantity of time when they received no personal attention.

Some parents have mixed feelings about leaving their children alone or with others, but they do so in order to supplement the family income, and they hope they are doing what's best for the children. Transferring much of the responsibility of child-rearing to others, however, has undoubtedly affected parent-child relationships. Many children feel a lack of real acceptance by their parents and suffer from a sense of insecurity. Parents whose busy work schedules result in inadequate attention to their children too often discover the effects on their children's physical and emotional well-being only after it is too late--after a teenage pregnancy, a drug charge, or a suicide has resulted.