Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/parenting-101-to-parent-or-mom-and-pop/5013322/
"To parent" became a verb sometime in the past few decades. Before that, we simply had Mom or Pop - or maybe Gram, Gramps, and the Aunties with an occasional Uncle or two tossed in for variety, comic relief, or sports advice.The only problem with this set up was that no matter what these folks did, it got repeated by the next generation and the next and the next. Whether it was brandishing a wooden spoon to stir cookies or to paddle a bottom, the beat went on.
Learning to raise children had all the earmarks of a lottery drawing. If we changed the topic from parenting skills to cooking skills, some of us learned how to make chicken cordon bleu while others grew up without a clue about how to boil water.
This brings us to the present day field of parenting education. I've noticed that most people sign up for parenting classes to find out how to change their kids. The problem is that the ones sitting in the parenting class doing the learning are the adults. This makes it pretty unlikely that little Johnny is going to wake up next week having set a new potty training goal for himself. ...