Is one of
the functions of families to raise children to become good citizens? What do you think of trying to give children
equal chances? Are families a hindrance
in helping disadvantaged children have a chance? If so, what should be done about it?
First of all, I really like the idea of Mr. Swift’s revisionist view of the family. We should not consider a family only composed of a women and a man. Although, people usually think of “one mother, one father” family, it should not be like that. There are many types of families such as three parents and a child or two people of the same sex. What I like is that his/their book is taking only the parent-child relationship into consideration. I also agree with Mr. Swift’s claiming that we need a family. I cannot personally even think about not having a family. Even though this was not mentioned in the article, in my opinion, the family is irreplaceable.Those are our closest – mother, father, siblings, but also grandparents, cousins and aunts with uncles. Who could imagine a life without them? When you feel sad or mad, there is always somebody who will help you. When talking about the duties of parents, I think they have just one – to bring up a polite, tolerant child who will not commit a crime and will be useful for the society. Although children should be seen as nascent citizens, so their development depends on the citizenship.
ReplyDeleteI think that when there is a family with two and more children, the children will never have the same fair equality of opportunity. Whether we want or not, everyone can see that children cannot be treated in the same way, which can sometimes lead to a child’s sadness. One of the problems is age. For instance, my sister is 22 and in comparison with me, a 17-year-old, she always had more opportunities than me when were younger and she was allowed to do much more than me, like hanging out or going to the theatre with friends. Oppositely, I had to be at home, enjoying my time with parents. Yet, I knew that our parents loved us which was more important than fair equality of opportunity, as it was also written in the interview. Now when I am almost an adult, and my and my sisters’ opportunities are not that different, I appreciate the familial relationship much more. But this is only within family. Another case is when there are big differences between two families. Of course, when your parents know people in the right place and have money, you have much more opportunities. Let’s look at a sport – ice-hockey. When I was at a concert, a young ice-hockey player came there and we started communicating. Obviously, we discussed ice-hockey and the quality of National Ice Hockey Team of Slovakia. We concluded that the fact which was decisive why our guys were so good in past, like in 2002, were money. In past, ice-hockey was played by those who were talented and these players, as it usually is in all sports, were playing better than the others. Although, those less talented players had fewer opportunities to show off, we had achieved golden medals in 2002, as a team. I know that they were adult people and could pay it, but when they began playing ice-hockey they were just children. But nowadays, the young playing players are those whose parents can afford paying, and the talented ones are playing ice-hockey somewhere on a lake, because their parents do not have enough money. I believe, as Mr. Derbyshire said, even though it is unreal, if we fix parents’ economic resources, the unevenness of the development will be fixed as well. I also agree with the fact that the stuff that goes informally within family can have a great impact on the life. As it was mentioned, the bedtime’s stories, taking children on a holiday and so on, can reflect in the future even more than property that was bequeathed to us, because everybody can have a property as they want in future life, but the familial relationship will be never the same when we grow up. Yet, bequeathing property could be considered as a form of showing love, many of us would still appreciate being offered help by parents with homework or being read stories more.
And I am not an exception; I belong to the group of those people who appreciate the familial relationship more than everything else.