Understanding the Modern Parenting Landscape for Working Parents

You look forward to the weekends when you can put your feet up and relax. But before your realise, it zooms past, faster than your paycheck, and you’re left wondering what happened?

And if you’re part of the growing tribe of working parents, then the elusive weekends look even more distant.

The comforting factor is you’re not alone in this fast paced rhythm of modern life. Balancing the demands of work and family can feel like an uphill task, constantly battling something or the other.

Yet it needn’t be like that. You can find that balance in your parental universe. But first, you need to understand the changing landscape of modern parenting.

Shifting Societal Norms And Expectations For Working Parents

Parenting is never easy. And if you happen to be a working parent, hats off to you. You can give any juggler a run for his money!

On a serious note, navigating this dynamic landscape requires adaptability, resilience, and open mindedness to adopt new strategies to make things work.

One of my student’s parents had worked out a strategy of alternating — one month it was the mother’s duty to attend to all school requirements like PTMs, after-school classes, carpooling, etc., and the next month would be the father’s. This way they both get to equally participate and share responsibilities. Of course there were occasional tweaks but on the whole it worked out well for them.

The traditional 9-to-5 jobs are gone. The current scene is that you’re never free from your work; you carry it around on your phone and laptop. As working parents, you’ve to figure out new innovative systems for survival. You’re now required to work your lives around this constant intrusion of the professional lives into your rapidly shrinking personal lives.

And it’s not just the working parents who have to battle this intrusion; children have to fight to free themselves from the hypnotic clutches of the social media, the all-powerful influencers and being ‘visible’. Parents have to be alert to such influences constantly and create awareness. It’s like shadow boxing.

In this digital environment, building relationships with time constraints and constant distractions is a challenging task. There are no one-size-fits-all solutions. Each has to figure out what works for them.

Impact of Technology and Social Media on Parenting Styles

The changes in the society are phenomenal. It’s a digital age. The impact of the technological advancement and its influence on the role of parents cannot be ignored.

The role of the parents is constantly evolving. Bringing up children is no longer restricted to their well-being, as in keep them fed, clothed and provided for. As digital natives, children are growing up in a vastly different world from the one you grew up in.

For starters, education has gone beyond the textbooks and classrooms. Their increasing dependence on online learning platforms requires the parents to arm themselves with the appropriate knowledge to be able to provide the required guidance.

Your work at the office does not end once you leave your place of work. Technology has ensured the work stays with you long after the working hours. Meetings, emails, reports, calls — there’s no end to how much technology has permeated into our lives.

I know of parents who are both working, who have installed cameras in their house to monitor their child whose alone at home with the helper. Another uses trackers; it’s not possible for the working parents to leave work every now and then to pick and drop their child to and from different classes or engagements.

In such circumstances, the dependence on technology is inevitable. Even though technology has merged the boundaries between personal and professional spheres, it’s not possible to do without it. You carry your work home, and your home to work.

Conclusion

Like everything else parenting too has adapted to the changing times. Whether both the parents are working or only one, the challenges remain the same.

It’s a continuous journey of discovery, learning and growing alongside your children.

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