We’d like to acknowledge the contribution of Keyshawn McMiller to Brandon Legal Group’s Legal Scholarship, an essay competition.  While not the winner, the submitted essay certainly deserved publication in a public forum.

Keyshawn is from

Equal Parenting Roles

The Art of Parenting: Who Does What?

In this day in age, gender roles have broken free from their patriarchal walls, as women have clawed and scratched their way to obtaining equal footing with their male counterparts across a plethora of societal sectors, including parenting. This dates back to the passing of the 19th Amendment in 1920, which established women’s suffrage.

Every year, hundreds upon thousands of children are conceived by way of planned love-making sessions, spontaneous bouts of passion, to a late night with a bottle of “Happy Sauce.” These occurrences eventually lead to thousands upon millions of arguments, ranging from, who will feed/bathe the kids(s), take them to school and or extracurriculars, to bigger topics such as, “The Talk” and when to have them leave the nest (if necessary).

In the case of my three siblings and myself, the roles of my parents consisted of a combination of traditional parenting mixed with a bit of freestyling, as my father grew up in the 50’s era before
enlisting in the Air Force and serving in the Vietnam war, whereas my mother, grew up in rural South Carolina during the 70’s. For our household, bathing was primarily done by my mom, as my dad worked the night shift as a security guard of an apartment complex upon retiring from the military, however cooking, which in the “good ole days,” was typically the job of a woman, was done primarily by my father, as my mother worked during the day as a restaurant manager and no, he never burned a single meal or had us eat tv dinners every night, dad threw down in the kitchen! Alas, the strenuous work schedules of our parents eventually led to my siblings and me, having to be taught how to be more independent a few years earlier than our peers. Once my siblings and I entered high school, we all got into our own individual after-school activities, which for me, included attending Friday night football games, and weekend band competitions. I’m happy to say my parents were equally supportive in attending all of our events, even up to our early college years.

It is important to note that in terms of teaching your child how to walk, talk and other vital human functions, I feel as though there should never be a “designated teacher” for either task, as this may create an imbalance within the family hierarchy. Meaning, the children may become so accustomed to having one teacher, the other parent loses his or her authority. This may lead to said parent becoming frustrated, especially if the lack of respect is clearly visible from one parent to the other.

Overall, men and women can and are equal when it comes to raising their children, as I do not believe traditional parenting leads to a better child any more than other styles of parenting, especially with the recent passing of gay marriage laws in certain states. It is only when the mindset of the individuals involved, fail to open to the new ideas of the world, can you potentially breed issues within a child.

We encourage all legal students to apply for our legal essay scholarship competition.   Winning comes with a no restriction cash award.  See our scholarship page for details.

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