My mom has this very interesting theory: A parent needs to be by a child's side for the first 6-7 years of their life and devote all their time to it. Which is what she did with me. My dad stepped up for the challenge and provided for both of us. My mom had one goal: to make sure that I'd stay curious. She taught me how to read at the age of 4, signed me up for piano lessons(I haven't played piano at all nearly 3 decades later but I can still read notes), she made sure I'd be interested in different cultures, which subsequently pushed me to learn a few languages(which is the biggest contributor to the fact that I am doing very well for myself by a huge margin, forget software engineering, speaking English was the one thing that truly opened up the gates for me). Which on a slightly lower level did exactly what the article says. For contrast, I was old enough to witness and evaluate the extreme opposite - my mom's brother and his wife, who had children when a dog would have sufficed their needs. Their children were pushed aside, no one ever spent any time with them, whenever they started crying, someone jumped over to the toy store, get a bag of toys and shove them in their face so they would shut up. To such an extent that their rooms were filled with unopened toys and I'm not talking about 1 or 2 in a box, I'm talking dozens if not hundreds of toys still in their boxes. Last time I saw these children, they were >10 years old and they had no clue how to use a fork and a knife.
> Last time I saw these children, they were >10 years old and they had no clue how to use a fork and a knife.
Shoutout to the adults like myself that grew up like this. On the one hand, you develop outside the box thinking, because you had to learn everything via trial-by-eroror - no one taught you how to think inside the box. On the other hand, it's tough to trust or ask anyone for help.
Well I'm no champion of this theory.. bit skeptical TBH having been shown during some parenting coaching BUT the idea is kids who have a loving, trusting and attentive relationship with their primary care giver will be more likely to trust and seek help from others later in life and vice versa.
> a loving, trusting and attentive relationship with their primary care giver
If you grew up without this, you would not be able to avoid noticing how seemingly effortlessly the people around you have adjusted to adulthood when it can sometimes be a struggle to get over your fear of interacting with other people when you go to the grocery store. Not saying your skepticism is invalid but I would suggest to consider that perhaps the above is a privilege that not all enjoy and what injurious effects its absence may have. You may wonder about those close to you who seem to have trust issues: did/do they have a good relationship with their childhood care givers?
Speaking only for myself, I had a loving, trusting relationship with my parents. It was my peers who taught me not to trust (edit: also school administrators).
I think your mom did a great job, and that’s the whole point of the post. We need to focus on bonding with our kids and building trust with them. I’m actually a father of three, and being a father to my youngest while being much older is an entirely different experience. I pay attention to all the small details with my kids (which is actually why I wrote that post! ).
> Your father is a parent and didnt parent 6 years by your side.
I don't think you can imply this from parent. My wife is the parent who spends most of the time by my children's side. Meanwhile I am working to support and provide for the whole family. Still I am lucky and able to spend quite a lot of time with my children.
> Why didn't your mother step up to support that?
She was probably already busy being a mother. It's a full-time job.
> If a mother can replace a father in this role, why can't a teacher?
Nowhere it is implied that the mother is replacing the father. Both have a different role to fulfil.
> Why doesn't a child need some freedom and independence to discover their own internal motivations and creativity?
Again, all sorts of assumptions. There can be guided freedom, protected independence... etc. Even if you decide to throw your kid into the swimming pool to 'encourage' them to learn how to swim, you won't leave them there on their own, will you?
Cause they sat down, discussed it like rational adults and came to some logical conclusions: my dad was more entrepreneurial and a bigger workhorse whereas my mom has a much wider scope of interests and knowledge, which is to say, more knowledge to share, even if they ultimately graduated the same university. And now that I'm an adult (and have been for a long while now), I do appreciate the sacrifices they made and can safely say that they genuinely did the absolutely best job they could have done with very limited resources and a lot of compromises on their end. Something which I did not see when I was a child or a teenager, even though it was in front of my face.
To the second question - for most teachers, looking after a child is their job. 18:00, work's over, adios. To most teachers, children are just that: work. Which is not the same as rising your own child. I don't have children to say that with certainty and the closest thing I have to a child is a dog. I love all(most) dogs but I'll walk the extra mile for my own dog. Also, welcome to eastern Europe, where the biggest struggle in the 90's was having food on the table, so tough luck having a teacher.
I'm also a prime example that being near a child does not mean that the child will follow your path: my parents: artists. Me - software engineer, who can't draw a straight line even if my life was on the line. My parents - terrified of fast speeds or extreme sports. Me - well I have double digit scars all over my body from skateboards to bicycles to head butting a flower pot.
Maybe she wasn't fortunate to have the level of education required to support a family and the father did. Don't be so judgemental - people have complex lives and come from all sorts of background.
