Dear Malinda,

    I spend hours each day shopping for food and then making full course meals for my two children, with green veggies included. My cousin Sadie throws a frozen pizza in the oven and figures her three kids have a gourmet meal. Who's a better parent?

    I admire your cooking skills. I myself can't make a grilled cheese sandwich. But I really can't assure you that you're a better parent than Sadie because parenting doesn't have a lot to do with culinary skills. What parenting refers to is the beliefs, attitudes and behaviors people rely on to help their offspring survive and prosper from birth into adulthood. It is about the nurturance, maintenance, guidance, and the protection of children.
    Children progress through infancy, childhood and adolescence, and as they emerge in adulthood it is expected that they become fully functioning, competent, productive and contented members of society. This is accomplished through good care and proper socialization, the primary tasks of parenting, responsibilities that are shared to a lessor extent with other family members, teachers, peers, and members of the community.
     If you want to know which one of you is a better parent, examine your beliefs and attitudes about child rearing rather than your egg yokes. Since beliefs and attitudes are learned - from ones own parents, by observing friends, from reading books or watching television - there are terrific differences in the way people raise their children. In the end, the proof is in the pudding, as you well know. If it rises well and turns out tasting right, you've done well.

Dear Malinda,

    I am a single, working Mom with a ten –year- old son. My kid does his own laundry and starts dinner before I get home. My mother thinks this is awful. She says I'm a "wreck of a mother" for not doing these things for my child. Is she right?

    Any mother who calls her own daughter mean names sounds like a wreak herself. Phoebe, think of parenting as a circus juggling act. The key word to describe the experience is balance. Parenting is a complex balancing act built upon two dynamics: responsiveness and demandedness.
    Responsiveness refers to the acknowledgement, acceptance and satisfaction of a child's needs, wants and demands. As you know, children are forever demanding responses from their parents. When an infant cries, she is demanding to be fed or changed or held. A three-year-old insists on picking out his own clothes in a quest for autonomy. Adolescent needs information and support when they get in some kind of difficulty, as many teens do. When parents acknowledge and assist their children appropriately they foster individuality, self-regulation and self-assertion.
    On the other hand, as a parent you are entitled to make claims upon your children. As agents of socialization you can expect your children to learn the rules, values, expectations and behavior patterns accepted by the culture and society you live in. Parental expectations regarding maturity, responsibility and specific behaviors is called demandedness.
    Issues arise between parents and their children over how willing or able parents are to respond to their children and the degree to which children are required to meet parental socialization demands. This is referred to as parenting styles. In the same family there can be substantial differences in responsiveness - demandedness patterns based upon culture, gender differences, sibling position and family circumstances. Responsiveness and demandedness are two sides of the parenting coin and as such determine the effectiveness of the parenting process.
    It seems to me that you are asking your child for help in managing the household. This is often necessary in single-family homes or in families where both parents work full-time. If you are going to make this claim on your son, you must balance it out in your response. In what way do you acknowledge your son's efforts and show appreciation for his help? Do you take him to a movie on Friday night, make him a special meal, or let him have a friend sleep over? As for your mother, tell her that if she's so concerned about your son's activities she might try a little responsiveness herself by bringing over a meal now and again to give you and the kid a break.