The flyer promised to teach us how to raise successful, happy, well-adjusted children. My wife thought we should go.
But then, she was also the one who read every “How to” book on being pregnant that had ever been written, twice, once each time one of our children was conceived. Paying the most attention to any newly published book. On the assumption I suppose that being pregnant had somehow changed recently.
At least I think that is why. Truth be told, I wasn’t dumb enough to ask. My momma didn’t raise no dummies; foolish and ignorant children maybe, but no dummies.
After all, that would have been a question with no upside and only three possible outcomes; I would have had to read all those books myself, I would have been forced to listen to and participate in a long discussion on the relative merits of each book’s ideas, or my reaction time would be tested; again.
Now, I do not doubt that becoming pregnant fills a woman with trepidation. But it seems to me that once you’re pregnant, no one needs to teach you how to be pregnant. For that matter, no one needed to teach you how to get pregnant either. In fact, my observations through two of my own children’s gestations, and numerous friends kids’ gestations as well, is that pregnancy is quite capable of teaching a woman what to do and what not to do all by itself.
How else can you explain cracker crumbs in the sheets, pickles and ice cream at 2 o’clock in the morning, or the last minute flurry of cleaning?
Mankind has managed to survive tens of thousands of years of parenting before the first self-proclaimed “Parenting” expert sat down and wrote a book on what to do.
My personal observation is that raising a child is a hands-on experience. Anything else would rather be like trying to teach someone how to talk, without ever saying a word to them. Give them all the books you want, they won’t learn how to talk that way.
And as much as it defies the supposed wisdom of the experts, children have survived since the beginning of the species, despite a pronounced lack of parental education.
Now days, you could build a case that children survive despite the prevalence of parental education.
In fact, the more educated the parent, the more innate survival instincts a child better have.
As to going to classes held at the local elementary school? I failed to see the benefit then, and I fail to see them now.
Back to the Parenting Class flyer. The flyer proudly proclaimed that they had three “Parenting experts” who had come together to pass on their knowledge to us country bumpkin folks who apparently were destined to fail as parents without the benefit of their knowledge. The flyer was liberally sprinkled with terms like “controlling pressures”, “sighting goals”, and “sure-fire” strategies.
Seemed to me that their marketing was focused at the local beer and firearms crowd. Something that would of been considered racist by the liberal educators except for whom it was directed at.
Yep, all I had to do was put down my six pack of an evening , show up cash in hand, and I too could be as expert a parent as the three teachers “who are experts in the field”. But I recognized that as a lie right off. You see, I had my children out in the field, every day that they weren’t in school, and I hadn’t ever met any child rearing expert yet.
I have been involved in raising (to one degree or other) several hundred children by way of my efforts with youth groups, and if there is one thing I am confident of, it is that there is no such thing as an expert in the field. I would go further and say that there is no right way to raise a child, although I can say there are a number of wrong ways.
To prove that these classes were going to be valuable, the flyer gave the resumes of the three teachers. And it was apparent they all where up-to-date with current theory. None of them had graduated from college more than a year earlier. The oldest of those three was 24.
Now at the time, my wife and I had been in the real world trench warfare of the child-rearing battle lines for 10 years with my son, and 8 years with my daughter. Cumulatively then, we had a combined 36 years of child raising experience. And I just didn’t see what three young women were supposed to teach me.
Especially since they were all still childless.
To my considered opinion, what they were was “Non-parenting” experts.
Since I could readily assume that each one had spent the past 6-8 years investing principally in not having children.
© Copyright 2016 Marty Vandermolen
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