Parental activism - The Activist in You

Parents play a role in influencing, to an extent, the world around them by the way they choose to parent. Even if children don't turn out exactly as their parents expected, they have still played an active role in huge aspects of the child's world. My parents put incredible effort into ensuring that I had a quality education and home-life. Even though I didn't like some of their values and actions, I would still define my mother and father as parental activists who are genuinely concerned with how and why they parent.

Parents are, in many ways, the child's first teacher. Parents are in a position that is crucial for being role models and activists for the values essential for nurturing human beings and building healthy, caring human relationships. And more or less, present and promote a way of being in the world. There are many ways that parents enact and strategise the values they wish to promote. There is no one size fits all when it comes to parenting. Usually it's a personal thing and parents will raise their children in what they see as best for themselves and their families.

I simply want to raise the point that most of the parents out there are aware of the position they are in and how they can be positive parental activists. I feel that this is something that is largely undervalued in mainstream western society and is still in need of much more praise than it currently receives.