a parent is very important, because parents are the children’s first teacher and play an important role in their early development. How you spend time with your child and what you say, how you express yourself is what will make a big difference in everyday life for your child. One example is, when a child asks a question, make sure that you give the right answer, or if you don’t know the answer, just say, “I will check and get back to you.” For me what was always important was spending quality time with my son. I remember the way I was raised. I was raised with a lot of siblings by a widow in a big house. The widow did not have time to spend with me individually. My son was very lucky. He was the only child, and I was able to give him lots of attention.
As a young single mother, I had a very hectic life working seven days a week but always looking into what was the best for my son. One of the things that I noticed about the Jewish family I worked for was how they raised their children. After observing how they parented their children, I decided to incorporate some of those strategies into my parenting style. I admired this family I worked for. They were open in conversations with their children. That is something that I really liked. At one time my son wanted to become Jewish because he had a lot of good times with this family, but I always made sure he knew he was Hispanic and that his mother born in El Salvador, not in America. I’m very happy to have been able to put all the pieces together because this has helped him understand and appreciate the Hispanic culture as well as others. Right now it is fantastic. We live in an ethnically and culturally diverse world, and he is able to work and function very effectively because of his exposure to various cultures and racial groups at an early age.
One of the things that I did with my son at a very young age, I think when he was eight months old, was actually to read to him every night, because that’s what I saw the Jewish parents do. Each parent took a turn to read to the children every night, and I loved that, and I was asked to read to one of the children at nap time every day. I noticed when this five-year-old spoke, she had the vocabulary of a middle school child, and I liked that. So I did that with my son starting when he was eight months old. By the time he went to kindergarten, I had read a collection of Bernstein Bears books to him, but I didn’t know that he really knew how to read, until after he went to kindergarten and he started to read back to me. I wondered if he memorized the books or he really knew how to read. Now I think he knew how to read, and I feel so proud of that. I’m not a reader, but he is a fantastic reader. He reads a lot, and he writes a lot. I do believe it is because I followed the example of the Jewish family and read to him every day.
I was raised in a huge family. There was no time to say “I love you,” because there were just too many of us. But I saw the love the Jewish family had for each other and the kinds of things that they did together. I liked what I saw and did all these things as a single parent. I did them because I put my son first. It was not his fault that I was a single parent. I always felt that he was not to be blamed. He was first always. I wanted him to be successful. He didn’t ask to be here, so it was my job to make sure that he got everything and was exposed to everything that was important so that he could be successful in the future, and that’s what I did. He met a lot of wealthy people and a lot of very poor people, a lot of families and friends, so he could see the differences and learn that there was a price you have to pay to be able to earn what you wanted in life, and by having some of these examples, I was able to show him that he could be anyone he wanted to be, but he would have to work hard for it. That was my plan, and he was first in every way.
Finally, I could not have done a successful job raising my son without support from family, friends, and the Head Start Program. The preschool education my son received in Head Start made a significant contribution to his social and cognitive development. My involvement in the program sharpened my parenting skills and helped me be a good role model for my son.
Joseph Kijewski
I don’t want to point fingers at anyone, but I think a lot of people go into parenting not realizing the true commitment it takes to successfully raise children. Being a good parent requires three things. You have to be a friend, but you also have to be a disciplinarian. You have to be gentle, but you have to be stern. And you have to be able to set rules, but you have to be able to look at those rules and bend them at the right times. There are so many contradictory things that go into it. And it really requires dedication to the calling. I think some people are more suited to be parents than other people just because it’s something that they’re truly willing to embrace.
I keep remembering the dialogue in the movie Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, where Sidney Poitier was talking to his father and his father reprimanded him about the way he was speaking to them and what Sidney Poitier owed him for everything he and his wife had done for him. Then Sidney Poitier came back and said, “I owe you nothing. If you carry that mailbag to the moon and back from the day you brought me into this world, you owe me and if I have a son, I will owe him.” I think that’s the way I look at parenting as well. I think once you take on that responsibility of being a parent, you owe your everything to that child or to your children. Not meaning that you get in and give them everything they want, but you owe them your full attention. You owe them your time. You owe them your love, you owe them your consideration, you owe them all these things, and you really have to pour yourself into your children’s lives.
I don’t know that a lot of people think about that when they think about becoming parents. It’s a full-time job, the full twenty-four hours, seven days a week, 365 days a year. It doesn’t end when they turn eighteen or twenty-one years old. You still get the calls at 1:00 a.m. You still get the crying over this or that happened, and you still have to be there, and you want to be there. I think if you’re a good parent, you want to be there. But it really is, once you want to take it, a full-time call.
Errol Marks
It’s the most important job that anyone could ever have, and it’s an extreme responsibility. Most of us go into it lightly. We don’t take it as seriously as we should. It’s the most rewarding job, filled with pride, especially if your child does something great that makes you proud. That feeling is immeasurable. Like when my child finished at the top of her class in fifth grade, she had a nice GPA, and that made me very proud. So yes, it’s the most important job and the most rewarding job and the lowest-paying job, but ultimately, it’s a labor of love.
Maxine Maloney
My thoughts on parenting are from two perspectives—a spiritual perspective and what we would say would be a theoretical perspective. From a spiritual perspective, parenting, I would say, is a gift. It is a gift and an honor that’s bestowed upon us by the Father. And many of us who get to be parents realize there is something significant about the role of the parent, and I think when we are in tune and whether we’re spiritually grounded or on a spiritual journey, our Father grants us that gift, that opportunity to parent. Then there’s the theoretical, that parenting is caring for our children, whether it’s a biological or adopted child. I’ll also say that parenting is a powerful relationship that has to be approached with care and great caution because as a parent, you have the ability to give life or destroy life. We give life from a physical sense, and we give life through the care and the nurturing and building of our children; then as parents we can destroy the life of a child—whether it be from the way you look at a child, the things you say to your child, the relationship or lack thereof. And so, you know, combining all that, I think parenting is a gift that should not be taken lightly.
Virgil McDonald
First of all, I must admit that parenting is a joint effort by my wife, Kelley and me. Fortunately, we agree on most things about parenting. In our courtship years, we had long conversations about having a family and the number of children we wanted. She wanted six children because she is an only child. I wanted three children, we had three, and she thanks me until this day. We were not ambitious for our children. Instead we wanted them to develop good character. Respect, responsibility, reciprocity, and restraint were among the characteristics we hoped that they would embrace. I have to give Kelley credit because she was a stay-at-home mom who spent a lot of time substitute teaching at the elementary school where our children were enrolled. She was engaged in virtually all our children’s activities as they were growing up. The feedback that our children gave to me is that they could rely on me going to work every morning and