Moneysitting

It’s movie review time. Tonight, my wife and I watched “Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins.” It was a fairly entertaining movie with quite a few “laugh out loud” moments. I was happy with the time spent (2 hours) because it only cost me $1.08 to rent from the local McDonald’s RedBox. If I haven’t mentioned it yet, I love the RedBox idea! Anyway, let’s get back on topic. Are you thinking this is going to be a “normal” movie review? No way, you know better than that. I will say that if you can deal with some intermittent bad language, the movie is worth the rent. Give it a look and enjoy a real laugh and not some baby giggle at most comedy that you see these days. There, that takes care of the “movie review” portion of this article.

Now, let’s talk about what the title is about. As always, the movie review topic comes from a scene or conversation from the movie. This is no different. In the movie, there was a saying as follows: “Don’t let money raise your kids.” It really wasn’t pivotal to the movie in any major way and it wasn’t repeated. It did however offer some basic groundwork for some of the dramatic sequences of the movie. No, I won’t give it away and ruin it. Everyone knows a comedy always has some sort of dramatic twist to tie things together in the end. So, we are talking about moneysitting, the act of allowing your wealth to raise your kids. You may be thinking about nannies and high priced private schools or whatever, but moneysitting doesn’t only apply to the wealthiest of our society.

Of course, the simplest and most easily targeted parents supporting moneysitting are wealthy people. They spend their money on nannies for their children’s everyday needs and care. They spend money to send their kids to special, private schools where they can receive the “best” education possible. Wealthy people even send their kids off for months at a time so that they can become “educated” and “well rounded.” Does that even remotely sound like parenting? I guess it depends on what you believe parenting to be. Do you believe parenting is buying the best environment for a child or do you believe parenting involves you personally providing the environment for a child? Of course I believe that parenting involves the parent’s intimate interaction with children and not a replacement that money can buy.

Paid stand-ins cannot ever replace the involvement of the mother and father in children’s lives. The bonds that can be built and maintained are one thing, the feelings of being wanted and cared for is entirely another. A child can grow up in an environment without interaction with their father and mother but their minds and heart eventually need an answer to the question of “were they wanted…” Of course, without the necessary time spent nurturing and loving, the intimate bonds will not exist and resentment will enter the relationship. How can trust and honesty exist when there is no groundwork for it to exist and grow upon? Children REQUIRE the attention and dedication of their father and mother. From the very first day until the very last breath of the parent, parental attention is necessary.

Ok, that’s fine and understandable. Rich people have different perspectives on life and they “parent” different than “normal” people. We are the normal people right? Ok, let’s take a look at how we normal people parent our children. Most of us spend the majority of our time working and commuting to work and have very little time to spend alone with our families. If our children are a little older, we spend time running back and forth to school functions, sports games and practices, and many other responsibilities we have to take care of as adults. What time does this leave us for our family and children? Not a whole lot. How many of us actually spend dinner with everyone at the same table? How many of us are lucky enough to have both parents still married and home at the same time? How many of us go our separate ways when we are at home and have a basic acquaintance relationship with our family which lives under the same roof?

Our so called “normal” lives don’t sound all that conducive to parenting does it? For the most part, no it doesn’t. Where does moneysitting come into play here? How many people use the television as a babysitter? How many people allow their children to spend play days in some other home or institution? I’m not saying that some of this is a problem. I am saying that a lot of this is a problem. The wealthy spend money to send their children away and hire strangers to care for their children. Normal people spend money on cheaper items that do the same thing. Strangers in other households have more contact with our children than we do. People such as Barney, Spongebob, and Dora take care of our children at home rather than a nanny. They are just simple, and cheaper, replacements for parenting.

Parenting takes a lot of time, energy, and effort. Where do we find that? That’s a very important problem and for some, there isn’t a simple answer. Our responsibilities for our families require that we have to earn an existence to support them. That responsibility may undermine every single thing that we try to do as parents. We must try and find balance in our parenting duties. We must find a way to bring order back to our lives. Try to focus on having dinner with everyone at the table once a week, then twice a week, and so on. Try to focus on having a family viewing of a movie after dinner once a week, twice a week, and so on. Try to focus on spending individual time with your children for an hour or two a week and increase as you go. Children will respond with their parent’s newfound involvement in their lives. They welcome attention and acceptance and they will never again wonder if they are wanted.

Parents must spend time with their children. Stop allowing the ease of moneysitting do your job for you. It will be hard to reverse the tides, but it can be done. You will enjoy the time investment in more ways than one. Your children will also benefit from your dedication to family. Just start small, work what you can in and then try and expand your boundaries. Begin to make time for the most important aspects of being a family, parenting. Having a baby does not make you a “parent.” Most everyone can create a baby, but it takes much more to raise and nurture it through parenting and love. Return to our true human nature and build relationships with our children. In turn, our life will become better and our children will have a well cared for relationship with their parents.