Parental Authority

Our little one is growing so fast. In two to three years time she'll gonna be a full blown toddler. Now why am I getting anxious on that progress? Because she'll start learning a lot, from the things she see and hear, from the people she spent most of the time with, from everything around her environment. There are other reasons and issues - much more serious ones.

In our situation where we follow the exceptional rule of having a two-income family, as working parents, we count on a househelp and Marvin's mom to take care of Bea in our absence, which we feel our daughter is in good and capable hands. We need to make a living to support our family and our child and children to be. Well, ideally, no one should have a child until one is financially and emotionally prepared for parenthood, but the ideal is hardly the rule. Or should I say that some part of the history repeats itself. Both Marvin's parents are also working professionals and he and his siblings were also taken under their grannies care while their parents are away. I too am a granny's girl, living with them for almost a year or so during my pre-school years.

At the outset, I find it perfectly OK with grandparents babysitting their grandchildren during the day when both parents are at work. So long as the child is still able to distinguish between the real parents and grandparents and is able to discern who exercises real parental authority. My concern is if our child recognizes the other way, accepting no other parental authority than the grandparents.

I'm not writing this against my very kind mother-in-law but these are just some apprehensions I can't avoid to think about. Some fears that may or possibly wouldn't happen in any way.

Marvin and I and Bea's grandparents might be sharing the same belief and principles on child-raising, both being brought up in a traditional family, we may not have serious issues over this matter. But then I still believe in the "generation-gap" phenomenon, on the difference between child raising practices 20-30 years ago. This is not limited to this issue alone since I also consider the issue on discipline. Grandparents are notorious for spoiling their grandchildren, which might be a manifestation of how a person mellows down with age.

We may not have totally surrendered our parental authority to Bea's grannies but overall, we are still confined to their rules since they're our parents and we co-exist with them in the same house. It might be confusing to our young child being subjected with two different sets of rules imposed by two different parental authorities. But we can't just simply take away from them their source of joy which I think fills a void in their lives during their twilight years. Maybe, when we too become much older, we'll also seek our grandchildren the way a typical granny does. But definitely for me, I'll keep my hands off raising them and allowing my children to have their rights exercised on what they believe it is best for them to raise their children. Mothers might know best, but I'll never subject them to parental authority tug-of-war unless they've deeply urged me to do so. =)