Grinding My Gears!

You know what really grinds my gears...no this isn't like the episode of "Family Guy" where Peter goes off on these rants about what irritates me, but more of my own quirks.

The major thing that can truly get me going is the emphasis of parenting roles and responsibilities. As a mother I am by nature (allegedly) suppose to be all-nurturing of my offspring incapable of being the disciplinarian when the time presents itself. And, the father is suppose to be emotionally incapable of creating a stable emotional and nurturing bond with said offspring.

Am I the only one who sees this as a problem here? Why can't each parent be equally involved in all aspects of the child's developmental process? Who the heck said, "Hey this is the status quot and dammit I like it!" A mother if need be can provide both the emotional and disciplinary elements, but a father cannot be nurturing...WTH!

There is a certain respect I can hold for a man who has managed to maintain a sane sense of what parenting is suppose to be. A man that can be self-sufficient enough to care about the emotional state of their child's and put himself into motion into getting things done. A man that knows their has to be a checks and balances system to raise a healthy, whole-bodied child.

Parenting, is a dual-role is a job that's never done no matter how old the child may be. Sometimes it becomes a singular role with the loss of one parent. How must a child feel when Mommy provides all their emotional needs is no longer available and Dad never quite grasped the concept of what "compassion" is suppose to mean. Or when a child loses their father, is discipline suppose to stop at that point? Are they never to be corrected because the person who held the disciplinary torch has passed on?

My whole gripe with this situation is, at any moment we can lose the parent to a child. It happens everyday. And everyday families are left with de-funct ways to cope and deal with not only their major loss and heartbreak, but the balance that once was in the household.

I encourage my friends and family alike to share those roles. Don't let the other parent off so easily, try to learn some of their parenting techiniques. That way if you are unfortunate to lose the other parent, you can always go "Well, I did as best as I could. I seen your ... do this so I tried to follow in their footsteps."