Perfect Parenting: Myth or Reality?

-Deeksha Solanki

Intern, Mind Splatters, May-July 2024

The word 'family' has been defined by the Encyclopedia Britannica as a group of persons united by the ties of marriage, blood, or adoption, constituting a single household, and interacting with each other in their respective social positions like spouses, parents, children, and siblings.

Family thereby can be the embodiment of nature and/or nurture or the duo. We can comprehend how the mechanisms, attributes, and behaviors a certain family portrays can create an impact on the members of this family, especially the child: the growing mind is much affected. Very often we find such a disturbed person having his roots/childhood much disturbed –but still at the same time children from 'normally' or typically adjusted ones grow up to be dysfunctional in their lives.

To be able to understand the reason behind these inevitably acquired traits of people, regardless of the type of family dynamics, one has to delve into whether a perfect parenting style exists or not.

The most common parenting styles include the Authoritarian style, in which parents are not lenient or unreasonable at times. They do not give much freedom to their children and believe in making decisions on their kid's behalf. Therefore, it may become so common for children to use this kind of parenting method and go behind their parents' backs just to experience normalcy.

Second, is a type of parenting style that is characterized by extreme leniency and inconsistent use of disciplinary actions. Children experiencing this parenting method may be more prone to having behavioral issues and indecisiveness.

On another hand, being authoritative to children is another way of parenting which is referred to as the 'ideal way to parent'. Parents who work towards maintaining a communicable, reasonable, and justified way of setting boundaries and limits. Here, the children are allowed to make their decisions for themselves.

There are many more, and in the meantime, sub-categories or types of parenting exist, such as uninvolved and neglectful type, helicopter parenting, and so on. We have to believe that there is an ideal way to parent that showers unconditional love but also sets clear borders and limits certain things.

The functioning of a family mainly depends on social, economic, personal, and psychological factors. The same can be said about different parenting styles. That is why it becomes important to know what is the perfect or standard way of parenting, at least in Indian society.

In an ideal world, it would be possible to define a perfect parenting style, which according to meticulous studies, is said to be the authoritative type. The authoritative type encourages emotional support from the parents, which contributes to the psychological well-being of the child and their self-esteem. Besides, clear expectations and setting boundaries help children understand balance and are responsible for their behavior. Furthermore, the authoritative type which differs from the authoritarian type encourages independence in addition to communication.

To adequately embrace this type as 'ideal' we also have to account for the mechanisms social society needs to resort to different methods to deal with specific situations based on the needs of the child. As such an ideal style of parenting is not universal but it can be considered as a combination of different ways.