Renne Cachia: Parenting Freedom

Long before the existence of “parenting gurus” and parenting books, there were parents with love in their hearts and peace in their minds who intuitively knew how to treat their children with loving kindness and teach their children through examples and wise ways. In time, mothers started working and had to juggle parenting, career, and domestic duties. Fathers too had to work harder and longer, and sometimes multiple jobs to make ends meet. The situation plunged parents into worry, stress, anxiety, depression, etc. Parents find themselves frustrated by the many challenges of parenthood, scaling upward in complexity as children grow from a baby to an adolescent. Voluminous books from a variety of disciplines (social work, psychology, psychiatry, pediatrics) on parenting are available. Most of these books treat the parents as enforcers on what they should do or tell their children, without regard for what the parents bring to the situation including their mental health. Olga Mecking, a journalist, bemoaned, “When I became a mother, I read parenting books obsessively because I wanted to do right by my children. But they made me feel like a failure and I wondered why.” Her article on “Why parenting books are not really written for the parents” highlights many pitfalls and gaps in these books. Hurt, angry, stressed, depressed parents cannot be the best parents they can be or want to be, even if they knew it all. Parents need guidance on how to calm their troubled mind so as to be free to focus their attention to their children’s needs. …