Support of Parents

With the name of kind God; greetings to all the fans of the program, once again we have a discussion about the support of men and women in the steerage of their children which is supported by the Change in Life Compiegne and is going to presented to you dear audience.

As we all know that the children are the future makers of a country, in these children needs support and cooperation from their parents and in total from all the elders of the society but to the extent we observe most of the children are not having this support in the different areas of the country and are not properly taken care by their parent. Mostly it is observed that the steerage of the children are considered to be the responsibility of the mothers and the fathers are only thinking that their responsibilities are the provision of food and other needs of the families. Now in order to see that what reasons are there that most of the responsibilities are given to the mothers and the fathers are not having active participation in this regard; we have invited honorable guests for this discussion to ask them question and also to have answers for you, the guests that we are having today are Ms. Fatima Hussaini the program officer fo Women for Women organization and Hussnia Toba the employee of Lawsuit department of Afghan Women Organization.

Question: Ms. Hussaini; in the steerage of the children, only mothers are having responsibilities or fathers also?

Answer: Thank you, in regard to your question I would like to say that the best place for steerage of children is the lap of mother and the first word that the children are learning is the word of mother. From the other side, all the actions, acts and behaviors that mothers are doing is copied by the children. Similarly, the scientists have discovered and proved that even the child is in the form of embryo they catch many things from them.

In regard to your real question that either parents both have responsibility towards their children or not, I would like to say that there is no doubt that the parents are just like the two wings of a bird and whenever the bird needs two wings to fly, similarly the children need both mother and father for their steerage and if father is careless in this regard then serious problems may raise in the systems of the family.

Question: Ms. Hussaini; from your discussions it appears that most of the steerage responsibility is focused to the mothers, if the children are taken care in a good way or bad; the responsibility would be of the mothers?

Answer: Well; whenever we are talking about the steerage of the children in the embryo form then without doubt that in these cases the husbands has a direct role because if they properly behave with their wives and they behave psychologically and mentally good with them and love them, without doubt it will have a positive direct effect on the children and if inversely in this period violence is done with the women then the child will have frequent problems in future and as bottom line we can say that from the very beginning the responsibilities of parent are all together.

Question: Ms. Toba; based on your views, if the steerage of the children in the society is not properly done then who has responsibility in this regard?

Answer: Thank you; it is to mention that in the steerage of the children both mother and father has equal responsibility but as in our society most of the responsibilities are referred to mothers then it is our societal problem; whereas we see that a family is a small mass of society and in this small mass, father is the considered as patriarch therefore how can we exclude fathers from this important responsibility that they are deserving.

Question: Well; in our society any problem committed or done by a child then the mothers are blamed for this, this is the reality that the mothers are spending more of their times with the children but the mothers are mostly compassionate and fathers have also responsibility and should not forget and this vision of the society that always blames mothers is totally wrong.

Question: Based on your views; how the mothers can involve the fathers as well in the steerage process of their children and how to omit this vision?

Answer: One of the aspects which have become more common in this regard is that mothers are mostly among the family and children are mostly copying from them but the fear that the children has from their fathers is more as compare to the mothers; mothers are mostly concerned of their children and they try that their children not face problem or annoyances and even they don’t want that their children cry or get worried; therefore it is the responsibility of the father to support and cooperate with their children and for this purpose to involve the fathers whenever we see any problem then it is better to involve the fathers and without doubt that some of the mother because of the angers of the fathers not involve them in the problems of their children and they even hide the problems of their children.

Question: Ms. Hussaini; in our society the fathers are only paying attention in the provision of food, clothes and other materialistic needs of their families and they are not focusing to the steerage of their children; what could be the reasons behind this?

Answer: I have mentioned at the beginning of our discussion that the children are like birds and the parents are the two wings; without two wings the bird cannot fly, therefore in the steerage of children both have their roles. Now the reason why the fathers are not paying more attention in this regard is quite clear because most of the time the fathers are busy in the outside home activities and they are searching for the food and other needs of the family but whenever these men are thinking to have children then they should have proper planning and programs for their steerage.

From the other side for example: if a family is formed from a literate wife and illiterate husband then the wife should remind her husband in a very clever and proper way how to take part in the steerage of his children and inversely if the wife is illiterate and she only focus to cooking, oven and other similar activities and she doesn’t have the awareness about the proper steerage of her children then it is the duty of her husband to advise her and show her the proper ways of steerage of their children.

Question: You have mentioned before that the fathers are working outside the homes and are busy with the heavy work and therefore they left the steerage responsibility to the mothers, don’t you think that home activities are more troublous and sever as compare to the outside work?

Answer: Once we have conducted an experiment that either mothers or fathers are working more; in this experiment we found that the mother are doing most of the work, where we can say many times as the work of their husbands; it is the reason that in Islam it is mentioned that the paradise is under the feet of mothers because they are mostly involved in the family lives and they put more efforts in this regard.

Question: Ms. Toba; Do you think that it will create problem in future where the fathers are only limiting the steerage of their children to their mothers?

Answer: Without doubt; lack of attention of fathers towards the steerage of their children will leads to many problems in future, this is the fact that in the initial stage of life children are mostly focused to the mothers and the reason behind this is that they are mostly at homes but their steerage belongs to both father and mother.

The bad outcomes that can come from the lack of attention of fathers could lead to the disappointment of children and in when they become adult they suffer from the lack of their support and this is continuously a problem for children.

Question: In some of the families it is observed that the parents and especially fathers are given money to their children and then they are not asking where they have spent the money; isn’t this a problem creator action?

Answer: Without doubt that the children are unable to distinguish between the good actions and bad actions and where to spend the money, but whenever the parents are giving money to their children and have to ask about its expenditure.

Question: Ms. Hussaini; if the parents are not fulfilling their responsibilities properly then what problems could raise in the family and society?

Answer: Certainly, I have to say that the provision of clothes, food, money and other items could not effect on the steerage of the children; the parents should behave like friends with their children so that whatever problem they have, they share with their parents and find out the solution for the problems.

If the parents are not implementing their responsibilities in a proper way then undoubted that their children will take it in their hearts; they will become untrustworthy and careless and for sure that these points would create problems in their futures.

Question: Ms. Hussaini; sometimes the mothers are hiding the mistakes of their children; will it create problem in their future?

Answer: As previously I mentioned if the parents cleverly focus on their matrimony lives then without doubt that there won’t be any problem in this regard but the important point is that the mothers should not hide the problems of their children from their fathers and whenever they are trying to say something about the problem of their children, they should not disclose it in front of everyone; the mothers should share the issues cleverly and in a proper place with their husbands and then the father should deal with the issue with high degree of tolerance. Regarding the violence I want to mention that we should never use the violence against our children; if we compare the children with the tennis balls then whenever we throw these balls towards the ground with force these ball bounce back upward and it come towards us, therefore we need to remind the problems of our children with much clarity and intelligently and we avoid them from bad things otherwise it will lead to serious problems.

Question: Ms. Toba; as a last question I would like to have your message to those families that they are less participating in the steerage of their children; what they should do and what steps they should acquire for the better future of their children?

Answer: Well; I would like to say that if the parents are all members of the family understand the rights of each other and also understand the rights of their children and they have good participation in the life affairs then all the problems would be solved and their children would be the best persons of the society.

Message of Ms. Hussaini: Certainly I would like to say that whenever the couples are starting their lives and they conduct fabulous parties then they should remembers those moments until the end of their lives and they should not use the violence against each other and they should solve their problems mutually, as Hazrat Ali said, “the best property of life is to have good and healthy children”.

Thank you very much that you followed our discussions.