Family and parenting form the basis of society. Families provide a means for generations’ continuity when two individuals come together and bring forth children. Parenting is a journey full of joys, rewards, success, struggles, expectations, challenges and responsibilities (Bornstein, 1999). This paper will discuss the challenges faced in parenting based on the writer’s family. It will examine the roles that parent play in the lives of their children and explain the issues that impact intergenerational families especially the family of the writer in this case.
The writer’s family is made up of the mother who became a mother as a teenager, his father who was financially unstable, addicted to drugs, abusive to his wife and sexually abusive to his stepdaughters. It also consists of the mother's siblings who form a part of the family as a result of their parents, the writer’s grandparent’s incapability of providing parental care due to their addiction to alcohol. The primary role of parenting is to prepare children who form the next generation in ways that include meeting physical and financial needs through the provision of basic needs and emotional needs through encouragement and guidance (Bornstein, 1999). Additionally, it should equip them mentally through insights, offering motivation, support and morally, socially by teaching them acceptable behaviors, values, norms, and beliefs to guide them as they discover their paths through life (Bornstein, 1999). In the writer's family, parents face financial challenges. The firstborn daughter being born when the mother was still a teenager means that she did not receive adequate education to equip her with a job that would cover the costs required for a large family. The father being a drug addict can be termed as an absent father who does not provide financial support as he is in and out of jail and probably uses his money for drugs.
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The mother being young faces emotional challenges like the pressure of marriage to an abusive man who even sexually abuses his children. The mother is also not well equipped coming from a family of alcoholic parents who were negligent and dumped the siblings on her. In the writer's case, the mother faces the challenge of insufficient time to work, concentrate on the children and her siblings, have time as a wife with her husband, and engage in improving activities like education for her benefits. She faces the challenge of high expectations from everyone who she is unable to meet due to other more prioritized tasks (Bornstein, 1999).
The family faces a drug abuse problem that affects parenting and the family as a unit. The grandparents are alcoholics while the father is in and out of jail due to drugs addiction and abuse. This problem affects the family psychological because the children may end up feeling like they are the cause of the damage. It also affects education performance, growth, and development in social, moral and emotional aspects (Bornstein, 1999). They lack role models and mentors to influence their decisions and choices in life. Also, they also face emotional abuse especially the daughters abused sexually by the father and other siblings who from the events come to fear the parent. They may also arise competition for the available scarce resources between the mother’s siblings and her children.
Becoming a family unit also known as a blended family is a challenge in the writer’s family due to their different backgrounds and orientations (Bornstein, 1999). Several issues associated with this intergenerational family such as different modes of socialization that has led the writer’s sisters and brother to favor single-parent families. The divorce in the writer’s family has also influenced the nature of relationships between one another. Their levels of adaptations to life expectations like careers, education, marriage and negative influences like drug abuse differs as well.
References
Bornstein, M. H. (1999) Refocusing on Parenting. Article 29, U. N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. Copyright: Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System.
Retrieved from http://parenthood.library.wisc.edu/Bornstein/Bornstein.html#top
