(380) The vital role of the caregiver/ Upbringing 43

Most young mammals in the wild need their mothers to nurse and nurture them until they become independent. Without the mother, they would naturally not survive into adulthood.

Children, like young mammals, need a caregiver to nurse and nurture, discipline and train them. Without this vital caregiver, they will most probably turn delinquent.

This caregiver can be the natural mother, an adoptive mother, a widowed loving father, a divorced single father, a grandma, an aunt, a stepmother etc. However, neither a maid nor a babysitter can take the place of the caregiver.

I know someone who is a successful professional. She works in a demanding position. Although the family lives in a lovely building, with a foreign maid, the children run wild with hardly any discipline. A string of maids could not provide the stability of a non-working mother. A visiting grandma could not or would not discipline the children. A loving aunt could not set boundaries for the children in this case. The father simply had no patience to train and oversee them.

There are obviously many families with working mothers whose children turn out well. If we sit down and analyze them, we will probably find supportive grandparents who live in or who live nearby, perhaps we find fathers who play their role actively to support the working wives. Where children grow up with a void in the nurturing, disciplining and training area, we are bound to find children
going awry.

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