It’s true that double standards exist in raising daughters and sons. We should not use double standards or favouritism in raising our kids because the double standards can be seen as practising favouritism.
Don’t treat or love your children differently just because they are of different genders. Double standards or favouritism affects family harmony. I think we should treat our daughters just as we treat our sons. Otherwise our daughters will accuse us of being unfair.
If we allow our sons to stay out late, we must allow our daughters to stay out late, too. What we need to do is ask our children to inform us about it before they stay out late. We need to tell our children that we worry about their safety as there are a lot of “bad guys” out there. I think that our children can understand our concerns.
We can allow our kids to stay out late but we also need to ask them why they need to be out so late and who will be sending them home.
That’s what my parents used to do with me and my siblings before we got married. My parents only asked us to inform them by phone before we stayed out late. I have two sisters and one brother. I am lucky as I have open-minded and supportive parents.
I used to be very active in university. I used to leave home at 6 o’clock in the morning and return home at 10 o’clock in the evening. I needed to attend a lot of functions and outdoor and indoor activities such as meetings and training.
Although my kids are all boys, I teach them to do household chores such as tidying their rooms. Sometimes they take the initiative to make up their room and mop the floors by themselves. They also wash the dishes although I never ask my boys to do so.
I teach them how to use our kitchen utensils for cooking because I don’t want them to break anything. If children don’t know how to use something, they tend to break it or they will break it by accident.
Raising children is just like playing with a kite. We need to learn how to let them free but with a tether for a bit of control.
Niken Hapsari Wahyudianti