This article outlined the author's concern that many children are growing up today in single-parent homes and that this is a concern for our society. While I agree that it benefits children to be raised in a home with a parenting team of two, I must state that I do not think it inherently hurts children to be raised with only one parent. Most of the time, in my experience, both parents are involved even if they are unmarried, and it is not at all the "normal family," as the article stated, for parents to be married to each other. Many children are raised in divorced-parent homes, remarried-parent homes, or are raised by a parent's significant other in unmarried-parent homes. I must outright state that I do not think single-parent homes are a problem that we need to fix as a society and that I disagree with the general sentiment of the article. Good parenting can be done by one person, and poor parenting can be done (and often is done) in a married-parent home.
In my school, I am not allowed to directly address the social issues of my students. We have an administrator who addresses these issues individually with children, so I refer my students to her if they are having trouble. My only job is to teach them music. I believe the best way that I can address the situation of poor parenting is to use music to teach my students how to be good people. I will not allow my students to fall apart if they have a difficult time at home. Music is a wonderful subject for teaching students to be a part of a community, and music gives students an outlet for expression in case they have anger, sadness, or problems at home or anywhere. I believe that teaching students how to use music to express their feelings can help them learn to grow up in a healthy community and to be productive citizens.
Secondly, I believe that I can use music history to teach students lessons about life. For example, I can teach students that music has been used in the past to celebrate patriotism and to speak out civil rights. I can explain that the people who made huge differences in our country by doing their part to speak about what matters have often used music to do so. This understanding of music as a way to fight for the good and to make things better in life can help students to grow up to believe that they matter. Perhaps this understand can prevent some students from falling into crime or poverty as adults.
In the community, we must come together and treat others with kindness and respect regardless of their home situations. My community is actually working to help with poverty in our school district this summer by starting a summer lunch program. Once a week, we provide free lunches and fun activities for kids through a grant which we applied for. This allows those parents who may not be able to give their children adequate nutrition because of huge financial issues a chance to feed their children and work together with the community. It also allows them a chance to get out of the house and talk to other people for awhile, and it helps them to feel like they are part of a community. A sense of belonging into a group can positively affect how people relate to each other in the home and out of it.
A second task that my community has already started is parenting classes. Our preschool director offers short evening classes with provided childcare and snacks on topics such as positive discipline, sibling relationships, and nutrition to help parents with raising their children. In our community, most parents are present and want to be good parents, but many fall into a pattern of raising their children the way they were raised and have little education to raise their children otherwise. These classes provide a judgment-free way for parents to learn how to speak to their children calmly instead of yelling and how to encourage their children to eat what is placed in front of them instead of fighting and being picky.
In conclusion, it is important for our society to focus on serving others who need help rather than griping about how different society is than it was 50 years ago. With education and an opportunity to express themselves, people are primed, especially with modern technology, to be better than they have ever had the opportunity to be before. "It takes a village to raise a child," after all.
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