Parenting is a serious business. It requires one being awake to his or her responsibility of directing one's children to the right path.
The world is changing, so is every living soul in it. Amidst the different changes happening in the world, one needs to, as a parent, guide the children to take the positive path even if they decide to explore some changes. Some changes are positive while some are negative.
My role is to make my children understand the consequences of the available choices when it comes to decision making. There was a time when parents would warn their female children never to go near men. They would be told that going close to men would bring unwanted pregnancy. How? No one goes into the details. It's a topic that our culture detest discussing with teenagers. Unfortunately, there were different cases of unwanted pregnancies. As sex education began to gain acceptance, teenage girls are made to know how premarital sex could jeopardize their future. The details are laid bare. This is the process that I see to be helpful. I will discuss everything with my kids. I won't leave them to the mercy of society. If I don't teach them in the right way, they would learn it outside the wrong way. I will guide my children to follow the path of humanity and morality just the way my parents guided me to adulthood.
My parents tried their best but I identified some loopholes in terms of heart-to-heart discussion about some topics. Some topics are seen as not discussable. I can say that their prayers helped to close the gap that such loopholes would have created. I learned from that and it is my duty to get it perfect with my children.
In all these, I won't be an autocratic parent. As a teacher, my children should be evidence of my career achievement. They should exhibit the characters that I am proud of.
Talking about religion, culture and any other way of life, I will leave my children to freely make their choices. The only thing I will do is to show them how my culture or religion is the best. If they end up adopting another religion or culture, I will support them wholeheartedly.
There are some things that I hold in high esteem. One of them is being humane in actions and interpersonal relationships. This should form the basic foundation of human existence. Whether you are a Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist etc., there are some basic rules of life that one should respect. Right to life. Right to freedom of expression. Right to freedom of worship. Emotional intelligence and the rest. Once my children understand these basic rules of coexistence, I am in support of whatever choice they make.
However, there are few exceptions to this. For instance, I can't welcome a child that chose to indulge in homosexuality, crossdressing or transgender. If any of my children chose this direction, I will do all I could to talk them back into the basic acceptable moral values as African. If he refuses, I would leave him to his choice.
Like I said in the beginning, I won't allow things to degenerate to that extent. I will work on my children right from day one so that they will follow my guidance to the fullest.