Reader’s Opinion | Blaming modern parents is enough!

Helsingin Sanomat On May 6, the opinion section had two articles in which the problems of today’s youth were once again blamed on parents – those self-centered, phone-staring parents who see raising children as just work and don’t know how to appreciate its beauty (The task of child protection is not to treat school dropouts, Families have outsourced education).

However, as a parent today, I would like to bring out a different point of view.

All support services are being cut all the time. Has been cutting steadily for a long time. Today, parents are left more and more alone, without support networks. In my own childhood, the mentality of raising the whole village was clearly more dominant. The children were received at a younger age and their own parents also helped.

Nowadays, when employment relationships are uncertain and the financial situation is downright catastrophic for many, having children can be very late.

In addition, the requirements for parents are of a completely different caliber than, for example, 20–30 years ago. Now parents are expected to read to their children for at least an hour every day, brush their teeth for two minutes in the morning and in the evening until they reach middle school, offer versatile and nutritious food and eat together as a family at least once a day. We need to avoid sugar and salt and teach children emotional skills that we ourselves do not know.

Breastfeeding is the best thing for a child, but there is sadly little support for it. We are expected to be sensitive and sensitive parents who, whenever possible, let the child decide, for example, between two different options, so that the child feels that his opinion matters too.

But you mustn’t give a child too much decision-making power! A parent should be a parent and not a friend. But a sensitive one.

The child’s needs must always be met, even throughout the night. If you get tired, you just have to think about not getting tired.

You can’t want your own time. You shouldn’t want your own career and your own hobbies, because the child should be offered everything. But parenting at home is still not supported enough and parental leave is still not evenly distributed.

A child should have developing and good hobbies from an early age, even if they cost as much as the family’s monthly food budget.

The list of requirements is endless. Yet newspaper headlines keep shouting that parents are getting this thing wrong these days.

And at the same time we remind you to enjoy now, the children are only small for a while. Sorry, but there is rarely enough time for enjoyment in this schedule.

Oh yes, and did you still have to keep yourself in shape?

Laura Syväsalmi-Astala

health nurse, mother of two children

Järvenpää

The reader’s opinions are speeches written by HS readers, selected and edited by the HS editorial team. You can leave an opinion piece or familiarize yourself with the principles of writing at the address www.hs.fi/kiryotamielipidekeisuis/.