On not "raising my own kids"

If there's one phrase, one concept, one prejudice out there guaranteed to annoy me to the point where I'm almost chewing my own arms off in frustration... it's the idea that working parents aren't "raising their own kids".

"When you're raising children, you don't both go off to work and leave them for somebody else to raise." "This is not a statement against daycare. It's a statement about their belief in the importance of raising children properly."   Iris Evans, Alberta finance minister

It drives me bananas to hear anyone stating that a parent who isn't a stay-at-home parent is inferior and is not raising their children "properly" - especially if they're also claiming that due to the sheer audacity of actually working you have now reduced yourself to not "raising your own kids".

To hear statements like that come from a Finance Minister who was supposed to address the topic of  teaching children about financial responsibility and fiscal knowledge (like, oh, say, girls maintaining their own financial resources by working...?).

Well.

It's appalling, yes - but not surprising.

It takes a village

The argument that working parents are not "raising their own children" has never seemed logical to me. Some random questions I've wondered...

• Where did we first get the idea that raising a child is only a one person task? It certainly isn't from an anthropological/evolutionary basis (that stance would dictate a "tribe" of caretakers)
• Where is the border between not "raising" your child and "raising" them? When do parenting efforts become negated? How much time erases any "raising"? Does one hour "away" from your children negate it all?
• If "raising" a child is only one-to-one time with a parent - then is the job of "raising" a child done once they begin to spend any time with other people? Is "raising a child" transferable depending on who is spending time with a child?
• What about school - are we their parents while they're at school and not with us? Are teachers "raising" our children, too? After all, over the entire course of childhood teachers spend more time with our kids than early childcare providers do. Why isn't this argument made against sending our children to school?
• If we uphold that working mothers aren't "raising" their children because they are not with their children 24/7 - then why aren't we saying that fathers who also work out of the home or spend any time away are also NOT "raising" their children? If not, then why do fathers get time away with no negative impact, but mothers do not?
• are you still "raising" your child when your child is on a sleep-over? At camp? In the hospital? At a co-parent's house? If working isn't "raising" your child because you're not  with them - how can you still be "raising" them when they're not with you for other reasons?

My belief is that raising a child is the management of ALL of that child's influences, environments, exposures, lessons and morals through their growing years in their community - not just with me.

I admit it, I am fully a "it takes a village to raise a child" mom.

My kids are surrounded by loving, trusted adults every single day. Our "family" is huge. I welcome almost everyone - and their input - even if their input sometimes contradicts what I've been teaching, it opens a discussion for my kids and I - and that's how we all learn.

My village - my family - also includes our childcare provider.

I believe that my children learn invaluable lessons from our day home provider. I know that my kids get complimented everywhere we go because of their behaviour with even the smallest of babies - and it's entirely due to the fact that they spend time in a home with lots of kids of all ages. My kids get the benefit of living in a large family (day home) with all varieties of "siblings"... and they also get the benefit of individualized attention and a small family at home.

Who determined that parental care is always superior to professional care?

My childcare provider has a lot of superior aspects that she offers compared to what I would offer if I cared for my kids at home by myself.

I do not have the craft, toy and activity supplies my day home provider has. She has a garage filled with Rubbermaid totes of different "play centers" and "themes" that she rotates. I could not afford that amount of equipment - let alone find the room to store it. She has a swimming pool and she's a former lifeguard and she teaches the kids swimming in the summer - I take my kids swimming on weekends - but not every single day. She bakes - and I don't. She has a garden - and I kill plants no matter how hard I try to care for them. My kids try new foods at her home, they see different routines, values and  traditions than we have here. My daycare provider has loving, trustworthy young adult children who spend time with the little kids - offering my kids a great mentoring opportunity that I can't offer myself.

My kids also get the benefit of spending their day with other kids so they learn about modifying their behaviour for all ages and they learn about sharing, taking turns, compassion, empathy, generosity and they learn how to be mentors and heroes themselves.

IMHO raising a child is an inclusive lifestyle, not an exclusive one - we welcome the world in, we don't shut them out. We cannot exclude others from having influence unless we wall ourselves and our kids in to a cave. Learning to live in the world, to incorporate and evaluate our community influences and establish themselves as persons with their own ideas and morals in a varied community is the entire point of raising my children.

Parenting marathon

Raising a child also changes over time, which is a reality that is woefully absent in comments about how to parent "properly". Why do critics insist on myopically focusing on a small time frame - infancy - as the determining framework for an entire parenting career? A common argument supporting mothers as sole and constant, endless care provider is that mothers are ALL "designed" to care for children - forever - because they carried them when pregnant - or because they breastfeed the child as an infant.

I've always wondered how is the ability to breastfeed relevant when you're now raising a preteen - wouldn't the parent's temperament, skill set and a million other factors be more important?

Properly speaking

I guess I'll never measure up to Iris's image of "proper" parenting - and I don't think I'd want to. I want my parenting to be responsive, dynamic, inclusive and varied. I don't want to adhere to a narrow standard that is available only to a privileged few. I'd rather evaluate child care by it's result than by a personal moral stance.

I don't see a problem with any kind of child care with a positive outcome - for everyone. If the child's welfare is the guiding goal and desired outcome of any child care arrangement - and the child is happy and healthy... it might not be "proper", but that doesn't make it wrong.

Comments

[wendy]

Well said.

I think that the "not raising our own kids" idea is simple a closed-minded and uninformed idea. I myself had this very opinion at age 17-20, when I worked as a babysitter and witnessed my aunt rush back to work after each child. In her case there were discipline issues in the house, and it was a bad example that likely coloured my opinion, but from the other side, I see how much my kids benefit from the arrangement. They see a mom who is more than just 100% focussed on them, lives her own life as well, and they get SO MUCH from the high quality childcare I've arranged for them. We all win.

[Liberty]

I think the only time I have ever felt like a mother wasn't "raising her own child" was when my niece's mother worked full time, went to full school time, and then on the weekends left my niece with her boyfriend's parents because she needed a break.

Every weekend.

She literally spent less than six hours a week with her own daughter. No, quantity does NOT equal quality by any means, but I think there's a big difference between leaving your kiddo with a trusted, quality care provider 40-60 hours a week and dumpin' yer kiddo with whomever will take the job as often as you can.

I'm all for "it takes a village" as long as it's not almost exclusively the village.

Oh... and I don't think you have to garden or bake or do crafts to be a good parental figure. Some kids like that stuff, and some like Sudoku and chemistry experiments. (Two things I'm hopeless at!) That's where diversity of caring adults comes in, right? (Yay for extended "family" - related or not!)

Now... if only quality (AND AFFORDABLE) childcare were more widely available. At least here in CA that's a huge issue. But that, as they say, is another post. :)