Parent? Own it!

So you are a parent? Congratulations. It can be a beautiful journey. But the responsibility can be overwhelming.

I’m writing this article because I see more and more parents take only partial ownership over their parenthood. And I am very well aware that my views on this may draw ire and objection from people, but I think its time for an open discussion on this topic.

See, I have been a risk manager in the Finance industry for more than 15 years. We use (and are regulated to) a risk management system that distinguishes responsibility and accountability. In relation to a process or project, there may be many different people responsible for many different aspects of the process or project. But there is always online person accountable, having the final authority to decide and who carries the ultimate responsibility for success or failure.

Parenting works very much is the same way: we cannot be with our child 100% of the time. There is work, school, sports, play dates with friends, etc. That means that when we are sending our kids to a school, the teachers are responsibility to give proper and safe education to the kid. But we remain accountable as parent always. We are expected to make sound judgement over what school and teacher is right for our child, and to be involved enough to constantly monitor and reassess that judgment.

Reason why I conclude that many parents take only partial ownership over their parenthood is that they seem confused about responsibility versus accountability. Simple example: I was running in the city this morning. Mindful always that a city like Singapore can be busy, especially on a Sunday. The sidewalk here is shared by pedestrians, runners and cyclists. It’s a give a take and mostly everyone peacefully coexists, but on at least three occasions today, I saw parents taking up the entire sidewalk with their kids, thinking the world has to just work around them, thinking their are entitled to take up whatever space they so desire.

In one occasion the kids simple jumped right in front of me. Now I can assure you that if the legs of a seasoned 84kg runner knock into an eight year old a full speed, the kid will get seriously hurt. In all three occasions you could tell from the parents eyes that they expected me to just somehow work around them (which pretty much meant jumping onto the street at my own risk). There was no intention to whisk the kids aside and make some space for other users of the sidewalk even though I could see that the parents saw me approach.

Looking at this through the lens of aforementioned risk framework, I am assuming that the parents view here is that other people are responsible and accountable to ensure that their kids don’t get hurt, no matter what the kids do. This aligns with previous discussions I had with parents whose view indeed is that I will just have to be more careful around their kids.

This is a deluded view: if a child suddenly jumps into my path and despite best efforts to avoid a collision, I knock into the child, there is no responsibility from my side when the child gets hurt. My responsibility as a runner is to assess whether it is safe for me to run somewhere (iow if the sidewalk is too busy, I will walk instead of running and I am always more vigilant with very young children). If I have reasonably assessed that this is the case, I have done what I needed to do. Everything else resides with the parent.

The way I raise my son and they way I was raised is that you play where is is safe, so never on the street or on a busy sidewalk. If there are other people approaching you make sufficient space for others to pass; this may mean that temporarily you have to walk behind instead of next to each other. That not only ensures no-one gets hurt, it also makes for a kinder world. I see this level of consideration less and less these days, and I blame a lack of ownership of parents for this; the world doesn’t owe a parent an assurance that their kids won’t get hurt. That burden resides 100% with the parent. It is a harsh and scary reality, but one that I believe we need to return to as parents.

As always, I am open to hearing the various opinions on this.