Purpose-Driven Parenting

In developed countries, the educated elites send their children to expensive schools where discipline is combined with rigorous academics to train a child. The rich and educated professionals who hold white collar jobs do this because they know that every child is limited in life by the quality of education he/she had, the values he/she imbibed and the skill he/she was he equipped with while growing up. Purpose-driven parenting is one that considers the strength and weaknesses of the child, the future career of the child and the opportunities that would be available to the child in future.

The following are the determinants of parenting style:

1. Family background of parents. Parents who appreciate their upbringing and attributes their success in life to the type of upbringing they received are likely to give their children similar upbringing.
2. Cultural values. Parents who share a similar culture feel it is right thing for their children to imbibe their culture so that they can fit in to their society.
3. Religious beliefs. Different religions have different teachings about family and parenting. The Christian faith has the bible as its manual when it comes to parenting. The bible clearly advocates training a child in the way he should go so that when he is of age, he will not depart from the way he has been reared [Proverbs 22:6]. The bible advocates corporal punishment, instructing your child on what is right and teaching your child about righteousness. In my article, A Dad’s Influence is Transgenerational, I cited a study carried out in Yale University in which it was clearly established that parents have a way of influencing the parenting style of their children down the ages.
4. Educational background and Social Class of parents. Dr Annette Lareau, Sociologist and Professor at the University of Maryland categorized parenting in to two classes i.e. concerted cultivation style and natural growth style depending on the wealth and income of parents. Rich educated parents tended to adopt the concerted cultivation style that focuses on fostering children’s talents, training the children to interact in a structured environment in such a way that when they commence schooling, the school environment is already familiar to them. They are taught to think critically and interact constructively with adults and these impact positively on their academic performance. The parents are very involved in the lives of their children from infancy. Natural growth parenting style is the type commonly adopted by blue collar job parents. Children are left to play on their own most of the time because of their parents’ jobs. Because they have more unstructured time which make them create activities to fill up their time, when school starts they find the school environment too structured to adapt to. Parental involvement in the lives of their children is minimal because of time spent at work. Such children do not receive the sense of entitlement and support that comes with the concerted cultivation style of parenting. Children do better when the needed attention is given to them at the most impressionable periods of their lives. Children from rich parents are sent to schools where morals and academics are blended and such schools are costly and often beyond affordability to working class parents.
5. Family business and political interests. Children borne in to families with long established interests are reared to fit in to the family culture so that at the right age, they would be involved in the family business. Families like Carnegie, Ford, Kennedy, Rockefeller, Du Pont, Guiness or Royal Families give their children elitist education and training that would make them “a chip off the old block.” When Edward M Kennedy died in August 2009, tributes poured in from all parts of the globe because of his legendary contributions to public life. He literally lived out a script written by his Father, Joseph P. Kennedy Snr who though a millionaire want his children in politics and particularly wanted them to champion the causes of the poor, oppressed and disenfranchised. He gave his children appropriate education and made sure all the sons attended Harvard when he also attended to give them the necessary leverage to achieve their collective goals.

In conclusion, many parents have a way of succeeding in making their children what they wish them to become when they start giving them attention very early in life.