Parental convenience?
Mar. 10th, 2007 03:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
velvetpageWhat role should convenience play in parenting decisions?
Context: I found myself involved in a discussion on a friend's journal, in which the desire to cure her child of PDD (autism) was disparaged as being mostly about the parent's convenience. This was said like it was a horrible thing.
Now, I can see how convenience could be a very bad thing. For example, putting your child into daycare full-time when you yourself are at home full-time and not working an at-home job, might not be the greatest of parenting decisions. But it seems to me that convenience has a role to play in family decisions.
For example: if the only baseball program for four-year-olds was at the other end of the city, while there was a soccer program at the park down the street, I'd probably encourage Elizabeth to take up soccer. The primary reason would be convenience, for everyone in the family, and the knowledge that we'd be a lot more likely to actually make it to the one down the street. Assuming she's not dead set against soccer, is this a bad parenting decision? Another example: I made a conscious decision not to pursue a Francophone education for my girls. The Francophone school is not too far away and I probably could have gotten them in. But the school is much further away than the local French Immersion school, which happens to be across the street from Oma's house. For her convenience and ours, the girls will be going there. Was this a bad parenting decision?
I suppose the real question is: at what point is it reasonable for the child's well-being to accept equal billing to the well-being and, yes, convenience, of the rest of the family? I wouldn't dream of denying my child all access to a musical education, but is it reasonable to bankrupt myself letting her learn half a dozen instruments at once, when that leaves no time for other pursuits and no money, either? I will put Elizabeth into piano lessons, because we have a piano and I want her to learn to play it. If she wishes to learn another instrument, we'll find the time somehow, though I'll be steering her towards brass because she could learn that at church or from my father at practically no cost. Beyond that - her wishes are going to take a back seat to family convenience. Is that a bad parenting decision?
I think the people who downplay the role of convenience in family life are those who have a lot of time on their hands - and not a lot of children.
Context: I found myself involved in a discussion on a friend's journal, in which the desire to cure her child of PDD (autism) was disparaged as being mostly about the parent's convenience. This was said like it was a horrible thing.
Now, I can see how convenience could be a very bad thing. For example, putting your child into daycare full-time when you yourself are at home full-time and not working an at-home job, might not be the greatest of parenting decisions. But it seems to me that convenience has a role to play in family decisions.
For example: if the only baseball program for four-year-olds was at the other end of the city, while there was a soccer program at the park down the street, I'd probably encourage Elizabeth to take up soccer. The primary reason would be convenience, for everyone in the family, and the knowledge that we'd be a lot more likely to actually make it to the one down the street. Assuming she's not dead set against soccer, is this a bad parenting decision? Another example: I made a conscious decision not to pursue a Francophone education for my girls. The Francophone school is not too far away and I probably could have gotten them in. But the school is much further away than the local French Immersion school, which happens to be across the street from Oma's house. For her convenience and ours, the girls will be going there. Was this a bad parenting decision?
I suppose the real question is: at what point is it reasonable for the child's well-being to accept equal billing to the well-being and, yes, convenience, of the rest of the family? I wouldn't dream of denying my child all access to a musical education, but is it reasonable to bankrupt myself letting her learn half a dozen instruments at once, when that leaves no time for other pursuits and no money, either? I will put Elizabeth into piano lessons, because we have a piano and I want her to learn to play it. If she wishes to learn another instrument, we'll find the time somehow, though I'll be steering her towards brass because she could learn that at church or from my father at practically no cost. Beyond that - her wishes are going to take a back seat to family convenience. Is that a bad parenting decision?
I think the people who downplay the role of convenience in family life are those who have a lot of time on their hands - and not a lot of children.
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Date: 2007-03-11 01:12 am (UTC)Now if Elizabeth TRULY longs to play the flute once she's older and you force her to play trumpet because you can get it cheaper, that's a little different. But I doubt that will happen. Note I also said "once she's older" -- at her age, there's no sense catering solely to HER interests because they're very likely to change. Why inconvenience everyone when it probably doesn't really matter that much? When interests are firmly established, she can be part of the dialog that determines what kinds of compromises are best for the whole family.