Parenthood- Ellie Merrell

I can find no fault in any form of parenting that results in a household where the children are loved and taken care of, and where the parents are harmonious. Part of me thinks that we should push against the traditional structure of parenthood and question why it exists, but another stronger part of me thinks that, if it makes someone happy, why should we question it? When I was growing up, both of my parents worked full-time. In elementary school, I would stay after school with my brother until six, when one of my parents would come pick us up. My mother always talked about how badly she wished she could pick us up as soon as school was over like many of the other parents. She felt this way not because she experienced guilt about not fulfilling society’s expectations or because being a good mother gave purpose to her life, but simply because she loved us and wanted to spend more time with us. I think, a lot of times, this is how the traditional family structure comes to exist. It’s not always a result of social devices operating on people like sheepdogs on sheep. Sometimes, the structure emerges because it is what genuinely makes each parent happy.

That being said, if the structure is implemented in a family purely for the sake of tradition, then it is probably detrimental to the family and should be examined more closely from a sociological perspective. The history behind the division of labor in the household and the separation of the public and private spheres is really interesting. The power of this social convention is also very strong, seeing as it still heavily influences the media and people’s opinions presently. What is most irksome to me is the entitlement many people feel towards their freedom to judge other households according to whether they adhere to conventions.

I think that people would be more open to alternative parenthood and thus less of a stigma would exist as a deterrent to families implementing the structure that works best for them, if there a greater variety of images of alternative parenthood was present in the media. I thought Molly’s acknowledgement of the fact that there are zero representations of trans parents in the media was really interesting. The idea of trans parents had never even occurred to me and I can’t begin to imagine how hard it would be to raise a kid when so much of society in so unaccustomed to the image of your lifestyle.