The measures of parental nurturing

Dear Nanay,

I have been reading your column regularly. Your topic about bringing up smart kids and pushing them to study harder brings to mind my experiences with my own kids. I am a mother of three bright kids, all of whom are now very successful in their chosen fields, and making a lot of money in their respective careers.

When they were younger, I just told them that what was more important is for them to do their best in school, pray a lot for God’s guidance, and we prayed for them as well. We also monitored the kind of friends they associated with to the point that we made our home so conducive for all their friends to hang out.

What I want to share is not the good side of it but the pitfalls. Educational excellence and the career success of our children are not the final measures of parental nurturing. Allow me to ask these questions, which I asked myself when the kids left the nest:

1. Have we nurtured the emotional maturity of our children? Sometimes we drive our kids to be passionate about their studies and in the process they lose the time to play and socialize. They should have enough time for sports and extra-curricular activities that can enhance other talents like for music and the arts. They should be “normal” kids.

2. Have we taught them the realities of life; that they cannot always be the No. 1? There is always somebody better in the outside world when they get out of school. If they have been taught how to accept defeat and failure, they will become better persons when mistakes or failures are met.

3. Have we taught them to be unselfish with their knowledge? Success after school does not come from mere intelligence. They have to be able to communicate well with others and have a network of friends to succeed.

4. Do they attribute their gift of intellect to God? When we parents are no longer beside them to help, their daily devotion to God will see them through.

We, as parents, should be able to prepare the children to be independent and away from our control as soon as they graduate from school. Children who are independent make very good entrepreneurs and managers. Kids who are trained to refer to their parents for everything become Mama’s boys and this will show in their mindset.

We have brought up successful but imperfect children. Teach them the values when they are still under our control. In the end, it is not the academic excellence that matters, but what kind of people they become in using that intelligence, and what they will contribute to better society.

— Lisa

Dear Lisa,

Thank you very much for your letter. Indeed, you have given some very good advice from your own experiences which young parents would be wise to take into consideration.

As I have said in the past, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to parenting. Kanya-kanya talaga iyan (To each his own). But what is important, as you have pointed out, is to have some guidelines as to what kind of child you are trying to raise. And mind you, sometimes the decisions you have to make are not as easy as they may seem.

Do you want a child who will always be No. 1 or will “doing his best” be good enough for you even if he is just No. 2? We all want “successful” children. But how do you define success? Is it having a good salary and a nice car or is it happiness with what you have? 

You are not alone as we will all certainly raise imperfect children as we are all imperfect people. But as long as you do your best and as long as your heart is in the right place, we can at least aspire to raise good imperfect children who will, in spite of their imperfections, also hopefully be successful.

Sincerely,

Nanay

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