Parenting is never a democracy
Democracy has created some pretty good societies. And as much as there are competing ideologies and groups that will erode citizen choices, being educated, informed and vigilant is a criteria toward effective representation. But democracy is not the end all and be all. In fact, even within democracies, most of its institutions are anything but democratic. Just look at the way most corporations are run. It’s a top-down executive that cascades decisions to the workers. While the CEO may still report to a Board, membership still resembles an oligarchy.
Being a dad is kind of like being the CEO of the house, but accountable no Board of Directors. While this system of oversight has profound effects on shaping those under him, the qualifications to perform this job are astonishingly lacking. Often the parental method defaults to the mom backed by equally subjective experiences but infrequently challenged by others. Parenting is also infused with emotions and sometimes can derail even the most well laid plans in favor of the parties keeping the peace.
In fact, it’s well documented that conflict from parenting style can greatly contribute to divorce. I am one of those parents. From first-hand experience, I will attest that parenting separately is way easier than parenting together within a conflicted household. Looking back, it is much more enjoyable for me to be my daughter’s parent when her mom is not around, even when we were married. I didn’t need to be told how to be a better person, a better husband, a better father or better anything. When one spouse tries to improve the other, it’s not partnership, anymore—it’s management.
For me, I look at parenting as an evolving system of governance. The resulting model should advance into a social democracy where the common values of the family are upheld allowing the family unit to function effectively as a whole while accommodating the individual choices and expressions of its members.
But people being who they are, and especially when there are two parents (or CEOs) in a household, opinions will vary and soon enough one parent will resent being marginalized with the other resenting the burden of decisions. Parenting isn’t about exerting a strong will over the child or the spouse, but a consensus exercise as a foundation to determine what is best for the child and then taking authoritative actions to enforce that consensus. It doesn’t work the other way around; in other words, parenting is never about the parent.
For me, I look at parenting as an evolving system of governance. In the beginning, the decisions made were akin to an autocracy: a child has next to no input into its day to day care. As the child grows older, the parental system shifts to a gradual meritocracy wherein the individual abilities of a child can be gradually expressed, but the parent still holds onto extensive veto powers. Setting aside a justice system for infractions that deviate from the family norm, the resulting model should advance into a social democracy where the common values of the family are upheld allowing the family unit to function effectively as a whole while accommodating the individual choices and expressions of its members. At least this is how I imagine my household to evolve into.
Eventually, just like the best-run companies, there should be succession planning where the parent will ultimately hand over the reign of self-determination over to the child. It’s only a matter of time and this is always inevitable. The unstoppable force will always move around an immovable object rendering it irrelevant. It’s the nature of things. Parenting was never really about who’s in charge but the teaching to a child of being in charge.
