EFFECTS OF PARENTAL GUIDANCE

I love my parents. They are one reason I am who I am today. Their guidance and coaching in my developmental years was top-notch. This fact notwithstanding, there were some times that we got off on the wrong foot considering my adolescent tendencies and all. Our parents are amazing life coaches. To some of us they are the only role models we have. I realized one thing about some parents as I grew up and I think it is worth analyzing. I realized that some parents tend to live their lives in their children's. This has been the undoing of some children. Some parents, who for one reason or another could not live out their dreams tend to use their children to attain that dream. You would often hear a parent tell their friends about how their child would be a doctor, nurse, lawyer and so on. These parents normally plan the lives of these children from pre-school right up to the time they take their first salary like they would have lived theirs. When that child is lucky, he or she ends up with a career they might love or not. On the other hand, that child may be stuck in limbo if it is the case that when he or she gets to the stage where his or her parents failed, they cannot coach that child anymore because they did not take the time to find out why they failed in the first place to be able to coach their child to succeed. This child would therefore have to carve for himself or herself a new career path thereby wasting some years. We all have our career choices and more often than not, our choices change as we grow up. Our parents must guide us to select the right ones and not select for us.
I also realized that some of our parents are the reason why tribalism and ethnocentrism abounds. You would often hear a parent tell their child "I do not want you to associate or marry from this or that ethnic group" due to their personal experience with that particular group. This hasty generalization adopted by our parents goes a long way in determining our future partners. This too must stop for our own good.
Finally I realized that some of our parents are so strict that it has affected the children. I had a female friend who had to save my name on her phone as a female because of what her dad would say when he saw it, seriously? The strict upbringing makes us disciplined but timid. We cannot stand up to authority even if they are wrong, we dare not talk about sex. It is we  these same children that are bewildered and lose our cool when sexual issues hit us out of home. Dear parents, please loosen up a bit because you are not always right. Not everyone would agree with me on this, that is why this is just a  RANDOM AFRICAN THOUGHT. My name is Edwin Oko Lamptey. Y'all have a great week. More at randomafricanthoughts.blogspot.com
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