In Shakespeare’s classic comedy As You Like It, sad wit Jacques shrewdly observes,
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven stages ….”
Jacques details the seven stages from infancy to schoolboy to teenager to young man to middle aged to old aged, and finally to dotage, and death. Why did Shakespeare opt not to consider the pivotal role of parenting as a stage?
Perhaps at the time of writing the play, 1599-1600, parenting was viewed just like any other activity such as hunting or fishing, and one just did one’s best. Four centuries later, the landscape is entirely different and parenting has evolved into a rather challenging task, which is further complicated by an ever increasing number of variable factors.
Although every parental situation is unique, based upon the fact that every child has his/her own personality, the parents are, for the most part, confronted with the same major changeable factors, as the child progresses through the first four acts of life. Long gone are the days when the father was the sole breadwinner and the mother spent most of her time at home focusing on managing the children’s well-being and running the household. With both parents now in the workforce, the scarcity of time to spend with the children and on managing their development has become an element of alarming concern. Since there is no playbook for raising kids, it is no wonder that parents often feel as though they are performing a balancing act whilst juggling their parental responsibilities, their work duties, managing the household, and alas, trying to find some time for themselves.
The crucial element of moral bonding between parent and child can, regrettably, get lost in the shuffle of time – which can never be recovered — much to the child’s disadvantage. Parents often aspire to provide their offspring with the ‘more-than-we-had-growing-up’ advantages, exposing them to better education standards, namely, extra lessons, private school and other material benefits conceived as necessary into today’s modern society. As they exchange their time for so-called materialistic gain, they should pause (or rather make the time) to consider the long-term effects of this trade-off, and immerse themselves in the lyrics of the 1974 classic, “Cat’s in the Cradle’’ by the late American songwriter and singer Harry Chapin. If they spend five minutes listening to Chapin’s (and their own) regrets, perhaps, some parents will be blessed to still have the time to make modifications to their current lifestyle choices.
On the flip side, to stay in the musical frame, there is of course, the danger of going overboard and micro-managing the child’s development. Or, even worse, trying to relive their own missed opportunities in life through their children, a common dilemma which often surfaces in the lawn tennis world, where prodigies are brainwashed, from the first act until they can no longer stand the sight of a racquet, that they will be the next Rafael Nadal or Serena Williams. Instilling confidence in our children is an absolute necessity, but hammering it in, day after day, may create the exact opposite effect, leading to feelings of inadequacy and the inability to satisfy the demands of an exacting parent.
Parenting skills are/will be fully tested when children make their entrance to the third act, the teenage years, where challenges over decision making, in both the short and long terms, can evolve into heated confrontations, over what are deemed old-fashioned values versus modern day options. Careful consideration ought to be exercised in some areas. In this age of digitization and the evolution of the internet and social platforms, children might in fact be more au fait with the ways of the modern world than their parents are actually willing to accept.
As contemplation of career paths and choices begins, parents must remember that they laid the foundation for their children to make long-term decisions, and must accept the fact that when children exit the third act, the role of manager/guidance counsellor transitions to one of consultant. Frank discussions between parent and child about life on the whole become the order of the day. As they rehash the agony of their poor decisions and the consequential detrimental effects, they can only hope that their offspring will benefit from the bitter experiences, and grasp the importance of the concept of time and the need to maximize its use, or sadly, be consumed by it.
The role of a parent never ceases. Some children never leave the nest as some of us have discovered in our own lives. How many of us when confronted with a midlife crisis have sought the wise counsel of our parents, who might then be in their sixth act on the stage of life? There is no perfect parenting model or perfect child; each generation aspires to improve on the efforts of the previous one. The riddle of parenting might appear to be constantly changing with time, but rather remains the same throughout the seven acts of life.
Shakespeare probably grasped four centuries ago that life is played out on the stage of parenting, with the lead roles, ironically, switched in the last act.
