"Thanks for your letter about parenting. It has just arrived and I'm newly home and I thought in view of the short time we have, I'd simply write down a few random thoughts. This may take a lot of editing. I'm not sure I am the right one for this Workshop, since I have many doubts about how effective I am as a parent. However there are some things I'm learning."
When we sent out inquiries asking for contributions to this Journal Workshop on parenting, we received the above letter from the father of two children in Great Britain.
Does his statement strike a chord? Have you ever had "doubts" about how effective you are as a parent, or as an aunt or uncle, or even as a citizen concerned about the children of your community? Maybe. But raising children in the nineties is no easy task. The challenges are enormous. The shaky economy places stress on families — with many parents worried about losing their jobs. Often both parents work — and maybe there's concern about children spending too much time on their own without parental guidance. Drugs present another challenge. Recently, too, there have been increasing reports about violence in the schools — children carrying weapons and sometimes using them against their fellow students.
