Parents or Parenting

One of the greatest challenges in my parenthood journey is the challenging health status of my younger son. His childhood asthma and sensitivity towards allergic agents causes him to have recurrent coughing attacks and breathlessness accompanied with high fever.

While seeing him struggling with anguish of the condition is emotionally painful, dealing with his sleepless nights and treatment needs is physically exhausting. This winter season, for nearly last five months, we have had several visits to doctor, mostly because of him.

During last couple of months, my elder son also faced recurrent health problems. It was not only his health that I had to take care of but his pending academic tasks added to my load of work.

The recurrent visits to health care, constant struggle to meet the academics requirements, maintaining the medication routine and sleepless nights followed by the health challenges exhausted me intensely.

It was one such tiresome day when I was waiting for my husband to return from his work so I would take my son to the doctor's clinic, when I realized the struggle of a single parent.

My husband is the one taking care of our financial needs. Also, his presence saves us from travelling expenses as he uses his motor bike to take us to several places. It gave me shivers to imagine how the life would be if I had to earn for the basic needs of life along with raising children and managing household chores. Life of single parent is certainly not easy.

Those who are living such a life and are able to nurture their children well deserve to be applauded. I reminded of a distant relative. Her husband died leaving five children behind him The eldest was a teenager and the youngest was about 5 years old. Recently, when I met the family I was amazed to see how well she groomed her children.

The eldest son got an Engineering degree from a renowned university while the daughter was a medical student. The other children were also doing well in their studies. It was pretty impressive to observe a single mother being able to bring up successful and confident children.

Her example is the testimony that a single parent may raise their children to become a responsible and successful individual. While parenting without a partner is an arduous task, it does not say anything about the children’s future. Instead, it is the instilling of values and principles in the child’s character that decides how he is going to deal with his life.

I have seen children who are raised under the supervision of both the parents. Nevertheless, the disputes and the misbehaviour between the parents caused more harm to the children's character than would have caused by the absence of one or the other parent.

Moreover, while parenting is an important aspect of building an individual’s character and mind-set, the presence and influence of several other factors such as cultural influence, social interactions, support system, media exposure, life experiences etc. cannot be undermined. Sometimes, the negative influence may become so powerful that cannot be controlled by the collective efforts of both the parents.

In conclusion, while upbringing a child as a single parent is challenging to the parent themselves, the situation does not dictate anything about the child’s future. A single parent's child may grow up to be a conscientious individual, just like a child raised by both parents may turn out poorly.

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The post is my participation for Hl-featured contest, week 153, edition 1

Image by Παῦλος from pixabay.com