PET and the Ethics of Parenting

Abstract

Precisely because of the historical success of the middle class, the reality of contemporary parental power is that parental actions are very consequential. Parents affect the behaviour and the personality of their children, their actions and their being. John Bradshaw, a popular American psychologist (1988:29), states that our ‘families are where we first learn about ourselves. Our core identity comes first from the mirroring eyes of our primary caretakers.’ ‘Therefore, he adds, ‘our destiny depends to a large extent on the health of our caretakers.’¹ Because this discourse on parenting is now so commonplace, becoming a parent means recognizing that one is putting oneself in a position where one’s actions are consequential. The child represents that consequence. Whether the parent is present or absent, and how the parent is present, are consequential for the child. Abandonment, as in the case of the character Larry in Parenthood, while it symbolizes the tendency of some males to abandon the power they represent as parents, is nonetheless an action which is consequential for the character of the child.

[T]he conclusion of sociology and anthropology [is] that children were born with few (if any) instincts, that their eventual behaviour would essentially reflect the socialization they received (or did not receive) from their family and other social institutions. This extremely plastic view of the child frightened the more intelligent parents and left them apprehensive. Later on, if their child did not turn out well, they were saddled with guilt.

(LeMasters and Defrain, 1989: 11)