The relevance of gender nondiscrimination as a social topic is hard to underestimate nowadays. Despite the variety of achievements made on the subject in different parts of the world, the general tendency leads society toward accepting the idea of equality between men and women. Ensuring the effectiveness of this process starts with parenting during the early stages of child development, which puts tremendous pressure on modern-day parents to raise their children in a contemporary way free of bias.
Figuring out ways to put the intention of contemporary parenting to life is challenging. Giving children verbal advice without abiding by it will do little to indoctrinate them into the ideas of equality. Modern parents must reflect on how they were raised and get rid of their prejudices, which might prove to be a strenuous task. Conscious preconceived notions, widely criticized nowadays, can be spotted and eradicated more quickly than the unconscious ones that primarily manifest in attitudes and behaviors rather than words. For example, Bowles et al. (2021) promote the concept of emotional involvement from the father’s side to ensure the integrity of a child’s perception of gender equity. However, emotional labor is still challenging for numerous men due to the specifics of their gender socialization. A necessary step, in this case, might be attending psychotherapy sessions, an idea many people omit in their approach to parenting.
Democratic family structure can aid parents in establishing ideas of gender equality within a household. It supports the notion of teaching through actions rather than words presented above since the democratic approach implies fair negotiations between family members of different genders. That sets an example for the youth to follow, shown through the convergence of gender roles amongst parents over the past fifty years (Ammari et al., 2018). As a result, borders of what is considered appropriate gendered behavior dilute with each generation. This dilution is vital in establishing ideas of gender equality in children’s minds since it teaches them that there are no right or wrong answers to what they can grow up to be.
Unprejudiced parenting is a demanding task that requires much work and open-mindedness but is essential in the present. Several things can aid modern parents on this challenging path, and applying democratic family structure to their familial dynamics can be a beneficial step. The resulting unbiased attitude of children raised in such a way helps with the general betterment of society.
References
Bowles, H. R., Kotelchuck, M., & Grau-Grau, M. (2021). Reducing barriers to engaged fatherhood: three principles for promoting gender equity in parenting. Engaged fatherhood for men, families and gender equality. Springer, Cham, 299-325.
Ammari, T., Schoenebeck, S., & Romero, D. M. (2018). Pseudonymous parents: Comparing parenting roles and identities on the Mommit and Daddit subreddits. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 1-13).