Parenting — Raising Champions, Billionaires, and Presidents.
Parenting is perhaps the biggest responsibility bestowed upon a person. It’s so dynamic that whatever worked for a single child cannot be expected to work for the next, even when they share the same set of parents and environments. It is an exercise that demands a unique and individual approach with every single interaction.
The responsibility becomes heavier to bear when you realize that you are in charge of making sure that this little human becomes a positive contributor to the community, and ultimately the world you live in. This responsibility is extreme when you realize that your baby should be financially independent and responsible after the next 17 years.
In this article, I want to share my views on what parenting should be, how we raise the next generation of great individuals.
Disclaimer: These are my views. These are opinions I developed over the last four years as a father and an uncle. Hopefully one day my babies will read this and understand why I had to be strict with them.
Parenting Today
Millennials have a laissez-faire approach to parenting. Youngins are left with the nanny most of the time — even on weekends. To appease the child, millennial parents buy them a bunch of screens as toys, i.e., TV, iPad, Galaxy Smartphone, etc., and all these devices are connected to the home wifi network (I don’t have to explore the dangers of cyberbullying, do I?). Some toddlers have Television sets in their rooms.
It is almost considered taboo when I say to millennial parents “My daughter will take over the businesses I am building”. The most popular reaction is that you cannot control who your child becomes and evolves into. “You should let them be who and what they want to be,” they say. I find that ridiculous. It’s absurd. What if they want to become a career thief? The Professor from Money Heist? Never! (although I love Money Heist — and Professor, he’s a genius.)
Another thing, I find millennial homes too democratic for my liking. A daddy cannot watch the Saturday EPL match because Princess throws a tantrum over Peppa Pig. Parents reason with babies over what should happen next and the kids hold the lever to these negotiations — basically deciding for the Mother.
Lastly, communities are absent in raising a child today. When I was growing up, your neighbor from down the street was no different from your father. He had the absolute right to call you to order when he finds you in a shop or mall center. School teachers were co-parents. They did not wait for formal meetings or write formal letters to let a parent know the kid was misbehaving or missing grades. They would set the child straight as if they were the biological parent. Extended families, especially in the black community, were all parents of equal stance — regardless of their socio-economic situation.
My Idea of Great Parenting
Parents need to have a plan. Never mind if you planned to have the child or not, once the child is born you need to have a plan on how to raise the baby. The responsibility of a parent, in my opinion, is to decide and set the tone for the child's every tomorrow. From the neighborhood you want the kid to grow up in, the values you want them to hold, the school you think they should go to, the kinds of friends they should have, extra-mural activities they should be doing — you set the tone. After all, proper planning prevents poor performance.
Be objectively authoritarian. Do not dictate to the child. Most certainly do not project onto the child what and who you are not. If you want them to be ultra-rich, you need to embody the principles of the ultra-rich. If you wish for them to be great sports stars, you need to be fit. If you want them to be a high-level politician, you need to understand and maybe participate in politics. If you want your baby to be a great musician, you need to understand music. The ethos here is that children learn by observation, so as the parent, you need to be their primary role model in the field you want them to prosper in. Be a subject matter expert. Their little minds record what they see and so they form their habits.
I recently caught the story of Naomi Osaka on Netflix. I particularly loved how her parents decided to have tennis-playing children — even before they were born. By the age of 3, Naomi and her sister Mari were on the tennis courts. Growing up they would spend eight hours on the court, every day. Both these women are tennis superstars. Mari Osaka reached the ITF finals four times and Naomi Osaka has been ranked №1 by the Women's Tennis Association. That’s phenomenal parenting, Leonard Francios and Tamaki Osaka achieved their parenting goal with their girls.
My favorite footballer, Zinedine “Zizou” Zidane, has promoted three of his sons onto the first team of Real Madrid. He molded these boys into great footballers with lots of potentials and now they are playing for one of the best soccer clubs in the world.
Conclusion
This is the thinking parents should hold. A child creates emotional connections to the things they are exposed to growing up. For this reason, no child should be left alone to be raised by television and smartphones, not even the nanny. Raise your kids toward the bigger vision you hold for your family. It is this vision that should dictate the toys you buy, the foods you eat, the vacations you take, the conversations around the dinner table, family activities on Saturday mornings, the movies you watch. Your vision as the parent should dictate the tone of your home.
In closing, the words of Mr. & Mrs. Sali’s youngest son rings true when he says “the most important, yet not often spoken of, institution is that of Parenting”.
