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The Best They Can Be

Lynne Melcombe

I have a friend who loves her children as passionately as any parent I’ve ever met. But for her, parenting is even more challenging than it is for most. Little wonder: without elaborating, her childhood and youth were the stuff of nightmares. In spite of this, so great is her love for her children that she rises each day and tries again. For this alone, she is my hero.

It is my profound belief that, as a society that so utterly betrayed her by failing to rescue her from experiences that no child should endure, we owe it to her to help her find happiness in adult life. We owe it to her children to help her be the best parent she can be, because they deserve what she never had. We owe it to ourselves to provide these things to them and others like them, at any fiscal cost, because doing so will take us one generation closer to eradicating family violence.

In this issue of Aware, we look at healthy parenting. I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to write, with expert input, the article on attachment theory. Although this theory is still greeted with skepticism in many circles despite years of supportive research, every word I read on the subject confirms for me that here lies a significant piece of the puzzle of child development.

In thinking about this issue, we wanted to include an article on corporal punishment vs. healthy discipline. BC parenting educator and author Fran Kammermayer notes that the issue is not just corporal punishment, because it’s false comfort to suggest that there is no harm done when parents punish children without hitting, but with yelling or humiliation.

Finally, we include in this issue an article about the effects of media violence on children and some thoughts on why protecting our children from it is an aspect of healthy parenting. Although research is far from conclusive, the precautionary principle would appear to apply: why expose children to something that can’t help them and might hurt them? These articles barely skim the surface of a complex topic, and even then deal primarily with parenting from birth to the teen years. Parenting our children as they run the rapids of adolescence is another subject, which we hope to delve into at a future date.

Every time I encounter an obstacle in parenting my own children, I try to swallow my pride and learn to be a better parent. Every time the media report on an instance of intolerable child abuse, I remember that few parents hurt their children without having been hurt themselves. Every time I see my friend, I am reminded that a parent’s love for her children is the most potent motivator of all, empowering people to surmount tremendous obstacles and rise to the challenges that each day of parenting brings.

Our hope for this issue of Aware, therefore, is to further understanding of the importance of throwing every resource we have into helping people be the very best parents they can be, no matter what their background. Anything less simply perpetuates the betrayal — of them, their children, our children, ourselves.