In Australia our kids spend a minimum of 12 years in education. They get taught English, Mathematics, Science, Arts, Humanities and Health. We give them opportunities to perform, compete, design, cook and experiment. We reward them for high grades and focus on teaching home how to have successful careers.
Just think about it…TWELVE years teaching how to have a career vs ZERO to be a mum!
Many parents are lucky if they even receive a 1 hour parenting class after the birth of their first child. We don’t adequately invest in preparing people for one of the most important roles they will ever play, the one in raising the next generation of citizens.
I’ve heard the argument that its not the schools job to do this, its the families. Although I agree with this statement, when parents work 8-6 and kids are at school 8:30-3pm there leaves very little time for teaching about family and values. You may say we have all weekend long, but again these days those weekends are filled with extracurricular activities.
It’s just a thought, but maybe if society rethought what we wanted schools to achieve we might not have such a huge discrepancy in societies value of stay at home mums and career success. Just maybe they’d be less of a pay gap between men and women. Maybe the value of family time would override the expectation to answer late night work calls and working weekends.
We could equip people with a few more parenting skills instead of dumping us in the deep end and saying good luck. I know there’s not instructions for children or perfect ways of raising them. However, I personally would have loved a little more education on sleeping, feeding and coping skills for mid 2 year old toddler tantrums.
Parenting shouldn’t be learnt alone. It’s a role that goes on longer than most careers and there is so much wisdom to be learnt in a community that could help so many. Let’s place more value on being mums and dads because this life is all about family!
Mumma Z xxx
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