Should Parents Be Role-Models?

A famous professional basketball player was quoted as saying, "I'm not a role model. Parents should be role-models." Do you agree?

I agree that every child should not aspire to be like him and I understand his point. However, should parents be role-models? Should all children aspire to be like their parents?

Wouldn't many of us like to be better than our parents? What does the child do that is in the unfortunate situation of having a mother who is addicted to crack and a father who is a drug-dealing pimp who beats her?

This extreme example shows how ridiculous it is to tell children to use their parents as role-models. Maybe in an ideal world parents would be role-models, but this world is far from ideal.

Parents should be, and are, examples. Whether they are good examples or poor examples, children can still learn from what their parents do and what happens to them as a result.

Most parents would be good examples in some areas and poor examples in others. It could even be said that absentee parents are extreme examples of people who take a hands-off approach to parenting!

On a serious note, a child who was abandoned by a parent can use that as inspiration to be heavily involved in his or her children's lives. Some people wind up just like their parents, which is only good sometimes. Others make it a point to learn from their parents' mistakes and be better. And that is something that we are all free to do, no matter what kind of parents we had.

Copyright Phree Shares Inc. 2005