Adventures in Parenting
Parenting can be understood to imply all those activities that are done to a child to ensure the said child's wellbeing, happiness, education, comfort and material provision during the child's growth. These goods and services are rendered to the child by the parent or guardian. There are many adventures in parenting ranging from those that bring happiness, sadness, tiredness, excitement, anxiety, stress, shame and pride. Parenting is a normal feature in life that involves everybody either as a parent, being parented or was parented at some time from birth. In the article, “The Adventures in Parenting" the author, Raina Kelley, a staff writer covering society and cultural affairs, recounts her personal experience of the adventures in parenting . According to her story, she became a parent two years ago when she gave birth to her son, Wade. When her son became two years old, he had to graduate from babysitting to day care. Kelley, a working mother and homemaker, shuttling between work and home, went through the arduous task of preparing her son for the transition. On the very first day of daycare, Wade took ill hence could not attend school. The disappointed mother had to miss work as she stayed home and was preoccupied with caring for sick Wade. This incident, amongst others forced Kelley to regard parenting as an ordeal just as hard to bear as an endurance sport such as “a decade-long Ironman triathlon”( paragraph 3) which never seems to end. Overwhelmed at times, she yells at her professionally preoccupied husband for not assisting her. She concludes that the happy people who usually surround an expecting mother, anxiously waiting for the baby’s arrival and Showering the mother with gift, should also do well to advice the expecting mother of the adventure that awaits her, that is, how tiring and frustrating parenting can be