Purpose
There is no such thing as a perfect parent. One of the first things a person might learn upon becoming a parent is that they could have paid more attention at or attended school. That they are not tidy enough, that they are not ready, that they need to be more responsible. These things are clearly relative. Some people are very responsible, some people are tidy, some people paid lots of attention in school Regardless, it wasn’t enough. Children seem to merit a level of care and attention that can be strived for but never really achieved.
The vast majority of parents are entirely adequate. Do not mistake the ongoing recognition of the capacity for improvement for a belief that the care delivered to children is inadequate or inappropriate; it is just that it can be better. All parents, to some degree or another, rely upon luck, good fortune, divine help, fate, chance, or that mysterious thing to which any number of labels may be applied.
Today BHG’s wife found BHG’s daughter happily playing in the bathroom. There is nothing dangerous in the bathroom, she is not capable of climbing into the bath, medicines are stored well out of reach and bleach was safe in the kitchen. The bathroom is on the first floor. Baby was last seen on the ground floor. With Sherlock Holmsian acuity it was determined that BHG’s baby ascended the stairs in an unaided, unsupervised and entirely life threatening manner. Short of creating a spreadsheet to track the individual presently responsible for the supervision of the child there is not much that anyone can do to prevent momentary lapses of attention. Some are entirely meaningless, some, like the stairs, are more poignant. Don’t despair. Do not despair and I don’t mean of my parenting ability. Parenthood, like investment banking, is a role involving risk management skills and requires a cool head. Most parents would probably accept the lesser responsibility of managing money with glee were it a viable alternative to managing the life and welfare of a human being and produced a well adjusted adult. Finding baby upstairs was a massive wake-up call and a reminder that adequacy is never enough. Parents can never protect their children from everything, but they have an ongoing responsibility to develop and increase their capacity to instruct and prepare their children for the world in which we all live.
Trips and falls are the most common serious accidents in the workplace. Employers are responsible for increasing their own capacity to instruct and prepare fully grown adults in avoiding the dangers associated with trips and falls. Nevertheless, every year, fully grown adults die and hundreds of thousands in pounds of compensation are awarded to those hurt in trips and falls. There is nothing anyone can do to remove the risk of injury completely. If adults can’t be protected from these risks then the protection extended to children will always be relative. Only a foolish parent would allow themselves to be convinced that their children are totally safe. Instead the good parent recognises that risk can only be managed.
Key risks for children today are poor nutrition (e.g. fast and processed foods), early sexualisation (exposure to adult themes and content usually via the internet, music and T.V.), adverse peer pressure substance misuse, parental neglect (which is relative as above). Over the coming days and weeks Big Hungry Giant is going to examine some of these risks and a number of associated tools and methods for properly identifying managing parental risk. We start tomorrow.
