by Tabitha Hergest

Created on: February 27, 2010

Parenthood involves many things, many trials and tribulations.  But ultimately, good parents will do what is best for their child, as far as they are able.

But "what is best for their child" differs from one set of parents to another.  One set of parents will insist that a country upbringing will be the best gift they can bestow upon their child, while another will have the child grow up in, and become used to the ways of, a town.  Some will see to it that their child will receive the best private education they can buy, whiles others will have their child educated at home, and still others will insist that the rough-and-tumble of the comprehensive school system can serve their progeny best.

Essentially, all sets of parents are acting on belief.

When it comes to moral judgements, parents act very necessarily on belief.  If a parent wants the best for their child, then they aren't going to abandon that which is closest to their heart, and therefore, part of the fabric of their being, for their child.  Their child isn't an experiment, whose future well-being they can afford to chance on the outcome of something of which they know nothing.  If their moral code says "thou shalt not steal", then they don't set an example of taking a car, for instance, without consent.  Nor do they muzz little Johnny's hair if he comes home from the youth club one evening with somebody else's bike.

It's difficult to find a belief system - save within the higher eschelons of Government - where taking without consent isn't frowned upon, but the point is this: children generally take more notice of what their parents do than what they say.  Parents, for their part, generally act according to their beliefs.  Ergo, the child will generally mythologise around the beliefs acted upon by the parents, even if there is no spoken communication about it - anthropologically, this is necessary for survival and is a natural function of the developing mind.  And when there is a conflict between what is said and what is seen, it is usually the latter which takes precedence, which is remembered the longer, and which is acted upon.  Therefore, it is inconceivable that we can teach, in any meaningful and fundamental way, beyond our beliefs.

But should we be making moral judgements based on those beliefs?  In answer to that, let us consider what life would be like for the child without moral judgements.  A child necessarily tests boundaries, of what it can and cannot do.  At those boundaries dictated by the child's abilities, there is danger - he can be killed if, for example, he attempts to move an object too heavy for him, for example; besides, a child needs affection, and the boundaries a parent sets, based on moral judgement, are evidence of that love.

Where that would become destructive is where such moral considerations become indoctrination.

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