Informed Commitments/Children Require Care
Children require care. In addition to providing suitable prenatal nutrition and other forms of prenatal care, this includes meeting the child’s physiological needs for suitable water, food, shelter, sanitation, caring touch, sleep, medical care, and safety, along with the psychological needs of autonomy, competency, and relatedness. Childcare specialists, such as those at the evolved nest[1], extend this basic list to include play, attention, community, stability, connections to nature, and others. Children’s rights describe additional rights and protections.
Children are not responsible for their birth; the couple choosing to conceive and bring the child to term are responsible. Therefore, each child deserves adequate care.
How will this care be provided? Options include the birth parents, grandparents, extended family members, adoptive parents, foster care, communal care, or wards of the court.
While each of these options have their advantages and disadvantages, we make a case here for prepared parenting.
Prepared parenting recognizes that it is wise to be adequately prepared before taking on the many responsibilities of parenting.
This begins by taking care of yourself, physically, emotionally, and financially, now and for the next 18 years or so that it will take to raise a child.
Because two parents are often better than one at caring for the child’s needs, it is helpful to maintain a harmonious committed relationship throughout the child’s developmental years.
Preparing for parenting often requires significant time and may require postponing pregnancy until you have attained the required emotional maturity and financial stability. Comprehensive and effective sex education and ready access to birth control make it easier to delay pregnancy until you are adequately prepared to care for a child.
As children develop, they strive to make the transition from dependent to independent. This makes it especially important to meet their psychological needs.
The Self-determination theory identifies basic requirements of mental health leading to peoples' inherent growth tendencies and their innate psychological needs. These needs are:
- Autonomy—Being free to pursue goals you choose. Having a sense of choice, flexibility, and personal freedom. Self-governance. Autonomy is the converse of being controlled, however it is not the same as independence, selfishness, or irresponsibility. Autonomy is the feeling deep inside that your actions are your own choice; you are neither complying with nor defying controls. It requires integration of your choices and overcoming ambivalence.
- Competence—The ability to succeed at an optimal challenge. It is the ability to do something well or to meet a required performance standard.
- Relatedness—Feeling connected with others. Having people to care about, and people who care about you. The need to feel belongingness and connectedness with others. It may take the form of friendship and love, dialogue and sharing, group participation, community involvement, a variety of prosocial activities, and developing social skills.
These needs are met in various ways as each person develops in their own way and at their own pace.
Balancing these needs is especially difficult during the adolescent years. Adolescents often experiment to find the limits of their competence, relatedness, and autonomy. Risk taking, in various forms, may become prevalent. It is wise for caretakers to allow adolescents to experiment with and learn from a variety of activities while emphasizing the need to stay safe.
There are many ways we can care for children. Prepared parenting is one wise choice.