The Art of Parenting and The seven Imperatives

Parenting For Millennials

Yesterday I got a very strong inspiration to write about parenting. There are four other articles in the works but the push to do this was strong.

I took some time trying to convince myself that I have requisite capacity and insight to do this as I haven't birthed a child yet. In my initial life plan, I thought I will be a parent at least seven years ago but here I am without even a wife. Life can be funny and realizing this, we must go with the flow and know that there is a grander plan by the universe on each of our individual lives than our usually small and parochial expectations and plans. We do not always see the full picture per time but we must learn to live in rest that the universe has a motive and that we are adequately taken care of in that motive.

Being a teacher in the last seventeen years qualifies me. Being a child to a marriage that suffered divorce qualifies me. Haven being given the opportunity and  responsibility by parents to help guide their wards within stipulated curricula,qualifies me to. Haven been friends with people with various forms of parenting, from the ridiculous to the sublime, qualifies me to do this.

I started teaching mathematics and physics about two decades ago when I needed to support myself, family and education. I started this in medical school where I dropped out from to join engineering school as I sensed early that many problems will be solved by technology. These years of work gave me certain shared experiences as to the vital role parenting plays in the life of a child and in the development of society and the further evolution/advancement of our species.

This writing is made specifically to millennials even if baby boomers and earlier generations of our living species can enjoy reading and learning/relearning a thing or two.

Why Millennials?

Millennials, around the world, are the newest entrants into the parenting experience. The last five years saw millennials begin to make significant incursions into the workplace bringing with them the influence of information overload that recent innovations in technology has brought into the human experience. So haven gathered some wealth, many millennials are beginning to set up families. 

Not all have been this opportune though as we currently have an surprising expansion of the 'baby mama' and 'baby papa' phenomenon. I will be sharing ideas on helping those who have found themselves in the circle of single parenting in later publications.

Millennials are not only special because they are the newest entrants into the parenting experience, they are special because there is an unusual demand on this class of our species by the many events happening around our world especially with regards to disruptions. whether we believe it or not, the world is changing and the rate of change is also some cause for concern. Most of the change are positive but painful as it requires the birthing of new thought systems. All birthing processes are accompanied by pain.

It is the aim of this article to help millennials cope concurrently with one of the most meaningful tasks of being an organism and surviving a world at the center of disruption, birthing and emergence. There are two other reasons for writing this but I will keep them as secrets for now.

Just by the way and of almost equal importance is to mention the technologies driving this 'disruption, birthing and emergence' called the fourth industrial revolution. They include Artificial Intelligence, Internet of things, Blockchain, 3D printing, Cloud, mobile, Augmented and virtual reality, Robotics, Autonomous cars, Social, 5G networks, VPAs, Quantum computing and wireless power.

What are these seven imperatives?

In the course of writing this article, I had to develop a method that is in tandem with my values and I used it as an opportune to work on a major personal flaw which is procrastination. Procrastination can sometimes not be a disadvantage as deliberate procrastination can be a tool to develop perspective and capacity. If we do not see well, we can not be well; if we can not be well, we can not do well.

At the core of my paradigm is an effort to increase human happiness. This means that, for me, endeavors are only worth the effort when they tend increase the possibility for human happiness.

Hence these seven imperatives tries to move the millennial from a very insightful perspective on parenting to actually doing parenting well.

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1. Being intentional about child birth
2. A parenting vision
3. Body and soul; Nutrition and Exercise, Yoga and Meditation
4. Listening skills
5. Instilling values
6. Instilling capacity
7. The power of pain

Being Intentional About child birth

With global human population tending towards 8 billion and the attendant concerns around the sustainability of our species especially with respect to climate change and the other issues like access to water, access to toilets, access housing and healthcare, availability of meaningful jobs, nutrition and food, the energy and infrastructure question especially in the third world, the leadership crises in Africa; it has become very imperative that every child birth is a decision that the decision-maker is mentally ready for.

In making a decision to birth a child an intending parent should ask the following questions;

• Why do I want to be parent? 'I and my partner married for love we can as well enjoy our companionship as long as is it possible,' someone might think . Many intending parents are worried about furthering the family name and history and many times, this is the chiefest reason to have a child. There are other ways of accomplishing this such as writing a very good book and singing a good song or making a profound scientific discovery. Any of these other means can send your family nae and history into eternity such that birthing a child might not do.  For instance, Whitney Houston's songs will be played as long as our species survive yet we just lost two whole generations of that lineage. Another reason many give to birth children is to have people to take care of them when they are old. This is often times a delusion as by the time you are old your kids are too busy to take care of you and may enroll you in an old people's home which you could have done yourself without a child. One of the noblest reasons to birth a child is to give a gift of love to the world.

• When do I want to birth a child? with issues around how sperm quality vary with age, it is important the couples have their seeds within the first few years of marriage but this should never be without the mental and emotional preparedness for parenting.
• 'How many children can I have?' and 'How many children can I parent?' versus 'How many children do I want?' A human female can birth up to fifteen children in her life time while a male can marry up to ten wives and sire tens of children. Happenings in Africa and most of the other third world have shown that these practices are not the best as they lead to an inhuman scramble for resources even among siblings and ultimately leads to highly unstable and underdeveloped human communities. Findings have shown that the ideal number of children for healthy and happy families are between 3 and 5. for me, I will want just two; one biological, the other adopted.

A Parenting Vision

A vision is a general outlook for any activity or sets of activities presented in timelines of days, months, years and decades measured against key deliverables. An important approach to parenting is that you also see yourself as a child that requires your own parenting and that your parenting vision is only an aspect of your full life vision. This approach helps you develop a profound capacity for self-reflection. You are now able to observe your self while you parent a child; when this happens you become more thoughtful and bring in more awareness and creativity to the game. In being aware and creative, you are now able to be objective and intentional rather than just emotional and accidental in your methods. You can't give what you don't have and this approach helps you hone those values that you are trying to develop in the child, first within yourself

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It is also important to state here that a vision is only a plan and therefore should serve as a guide. It is not a do or die affair but it helps you develop a system of metrics to help you consider how much of a parent you are becoming. Yes, at every point in time in our lives we are becoming something. Living is a state of becoming.

As a parent, the first ten years of a child's life are the most critical time for individualization and character formation. Drawing a parenting vision means that you have to be available these first ten years. I will personally advice that you draw up a thirty year parenting plan divided onto three trimesters of a decade each with different deliverables for each trimester as follows;

• First Trimester; This is the first ten years of a child's life and parenting efforts should focus on delivering on: bonding between parent and child; instilling human values like curiosity, contentment, resilience, ambition, responsibility, vulnerability, patience, self-restraint, gratitude, empathy (not sympathy), saying 'please help me' when in need of help; Instilling values of ethics or business like authenticity, truth, prudence, thinking-things-through, openness. At this stage emphases and focus is on human values and little of business values
• Second Trimester; The second ten years of a child's life. Emphases at this stage should be on individuation and instilling values of ethics or business. For individuation to be complete by the end of this trimester, you have to help the child develop a worldview. This is very important and means that you yourself must have a very realistic worldview. This worldview will hone that child's capacity for ambition and will help him develop a range of professions he will like to become. Yes, I said range because when the child is able to see options of what he can become (s)he becomes more resilient and doesn't suffer a break down when they fail as there is another option including an option continue to try.
• Third trimester; Do nothing. Just watch your product. If parenting is done well in the first two trimesters, by age 20 the die will already be cast and the child should be married by age 27.At this stage, you should do main listening as this is the stage the child begins to teach you about the world he is now facing directly. many parents lose the game at this stage and suffer a disconnect as they still want to continue to mold and build a character that is already formed.

Notice that I am deliberate with the use of the word 'instilling'.this is because most of these traits are already present in the child you only need to firmly establish them in the mind of the child.This is really a no-joke thing but can be fun all the way.

...to be continued. please add your comments and suggestions and stand the chance to win my love pack wherever in the world you are.