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#PFSeries2 - Raising a Baby: The Pleasures, Pressures and Financing

Savings, Thrift & Investment	2488 VIEWS
Savings, Thrift & Investment
2488 VIEWS

Sunday, March 22, 2020 / 06:00PM / Proshare Business / Header Image Credit: EcoGraphics

Executive Summary

"[Childs] don't remember what you try to teach them. They remember what you are."

- Jim Henson, It's Not Easy Being Green: And Other Things to Consider

A wedding is an event, marriage a journey, and child-nurturing a commitment. Children are the salt of the earth, their innocence, bravery and untainted perspective of life untouched by the biases and melancholy that life imposes on adults makes them representatives of the best of mankind. It is for this reason, that parents need to do their best to raise children with a healthy appreciation of a life unconstrained by the shades of religious intolerance, ethnic profiling and fear that make adults less enviable representatives of humankind.

The nurturing responsibilities of parents is perhaps the most critical and yet most underappreciated aspect of family. The home is more than a house filled with people, it is a complex social process of raising human beings with aspirations of greatness, emotional intelligence and intellectual integrity. The home is an incubator for an increasingly improved human race. It is this understanding that makes the home the centre of human advancement and child-rearing the noblest of the roles of a family.

Several prevalent global challenges ranging from religious bigotry, terrorism, racism, sexism and general intolerance arise from homes where the moulding of children's perspectives of life have been tainted by the wrong and damaging social values, religious perspectives and racial bias. The Christian Holy Bible captures the point succinctly when it notes in Proverb 22:6, "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old, he will not depart from it". Proverb 29:17 further points out that, "Discipline your children, and they will give you peace; they will bring you the delights you desire". The Muslim Holy Quran also emphasises the need for children to be raised properly with a clear understanding that nations are not built on what adults know but on what children envision, according to Surah Al Tur verse 21, "And those who believe and whose families follow them in Faith, - to them shall We join their families: Nor shall We deprive them (of the fruit) of aught of their works: (Yet) is each individual in pledge for his deeds".

Raising children is, therefore, a task parents must treat with diligence, sensitivity and responsibility. It is from this perspective that this report is designed to assist parents and would-be parents in navigating the delicate process of moulding the lives of children given the family as trust from God. Each child is a unique responsibility that requires patience, planning, love and wisdom.

Part one of the report deals with the initial thrills and twists of motherhood. This part deals with the planning of a family by a new couple. It represents the foundation of a productive long term union between a man and woman, and marks the critical milestone for stability and peace in the home. At the point of planning a wedding couples must be prepared to plan the marriage which is the journey rather than the event of a wedding. The couple must be prepared for the conception, prenatal and child care needs of the new member of the nuclear home. It is usually shabby attention to the early details of preparing for children that leads to marital distress and sometimes divorce.

Part two of the report establishes the nexus between motherly love and parental planning. The pleasures of motherhood are typically mixed with its concerns, anxieties and pressure. An effective support system is critical to new couples coping with the sudden challenges posed by a new baby in the family, work schedules get disrupted, sleep gets banished and the general care and attention for the baby shifts intimacy between the man and woman. These are periods in a marriage that require careful organisation and commitment to a programme to avoid irritation, dispute and discord. The management of support systems is vital to the stability of a young family and this section assists young couples in getting a hold of the issues and arranging schedules that could prove effective in mitigating the common frustrations and irritations that accompany the unexpected disorganisation of plans that come with parenting.

Whether mothers are stay-at-home mums or working-mums the challenges remain and must be attended to quickly and efficiently. Even in the case of single mums the birth of a child is a mixture of pleasure and pain and require support systems that help the mother cope with the myriad matters that guarantee that the child grows up heathy and safe.

The third part of the report (Part three) provides practical steps to handling the financing of the child nurturing process. The report details how best couples can arrange their streams of working cash flows to meet the various additional expenses that come about from becoming parents. The financing requirements start from the pre-natal stage to the post delivery period and the subsequent needs of the child as she or he grows and integrates with society through interactions with peers at crÃ¨ches and at homes. The financing of the different stages of a child's evolution is just as important as the commitment to marriage and keeping a long-lasting fraternal partnership between husband and wife.

The successful nurturing of a child or children is the hallmark of the union of a man and woman. The empire of a couple is not brick and mortar but social relevance that emerges from the quality of people that are products of their union.