What do you feel is the single most important duty of a parent?

Answer 1

there is no single most important duty. There are several that are equally important. Love is not enough if a parent doesn't keep a child safe. Keeping a child safe isn't enough if you don't teach them right from wrong. Being a good parent is knowing that there are several equally important duties and not falling short on one because another may be easier. It's very easy to love a child and not so easy to be a good role model and teach right from wrong

Answer 2

Good question.....I don't know what would be a single most important duty because there are MANY MANY duties and responsibility's of being a GOOD parent. You can't just single it to ONE importance without another and so on........ If I had to single it out I would have to say BEING A RESPONSIBLE PARENT over all............

Answer 3

To teach them! If you teach them morals, values and about respect, it will carry them through the rest of their life. They may not always make the right decisions or choices, but you will know that they have the tools and are capable of making them. Thus, you'll have done your part as their parent. In teaching, someone is always learning, and therefore you can always make sure they get all of life lessons, or at least as many as you are able to give. Also, in teaching someone else you will also be learning and you all can grow as a family unit and not as separate parts of the family, parent and child, but as a whole.

Answer 4

Having two grown daughters of my own who are always criticising me for what they DON'T have, what I don't do for them, how they can remember the slightest of my mistakes and attack me for each one, how many times I wasn't there..etc. etc... I now can look back when they were growing up and see the real problem... I spoiled them rotten by making sure they had EVERYTHING I didn't when I was growing up. They had all the latest designer jeans, shoes and clothes, they both were given money every year to buy new clothes even when they had clothes that still fit them, they were given vehicles to drive before they even could afford the insurance and maintenance on them, they were given all the latest toys and video gadgets, they didn't ever have to work if they didn't want to. If something needed fixing, we parents fixed it, if something needed mending, we mended it, if they wanted to go on nice vacations with friends, we provided the money for it, if it was someone's birthday or special occassion, we went out and bought the gifts and or the cards for them. If they....and the list goes on. What many parents like me have now are ADULT children who blame their parents and make them feel bad when their lives are a wreck and we finally feel that they should do it themselves....too late, the time to have taught them to be good, appreciative, loving adults is passed. That should have been taught to them when they first learned how to walk and talk. Like to go and pick up their own rooms, do their own laundry, they should have learned how to say thank you, and the pleasure in giving and not receiving, they should have been taught the value of the mighty dollar by having to work just to get a new pair of socks. Let's face it, when we were growing up we didn't have all the "stuff" we throw at our kids today. We didn't get all the "Hollywood" birthday parties, we were lucky if mom and dad had enough money to make a cake let alone throw a party for 20 kids where every kid got a nice gift just for showing up. And my first car was far from being brand new...and I had to work to get the "get around" car I did get...right after I graduated high school and not WHILE I was still in high school. Kids in high school today drive around in better vehicles than I do and I'm a college graduate. Kids no longer have respect for their elders either. My kids yell, scream and cuss at me and then criticise me for the kind of mother I am when I don't call or go around them. I think I failed as a parent to my older daughters but at least I can look back and know where I went wrong. Those of you with young children need to go back to how our grandparents were raised and how they raised our parents...they make much better, wiser and loving adults.

Answer 5

Example...the old "do as I say not as I do" has been the reason so many of our youth today are in the sad shape they are in with drugs and alcohol. If a parent doesn't set the right example for their offspring then the child is doomed from the beginning

Answer 6

Anyone that had an answer. One answer...
is probably not a parent.

I am a single parent.
I can say I can not think of ONE single most important duty.

There are so many. All equally important.

Answer 7

Raise your children to be responsible adults independent of your control and equipped to make good decisions based on the morality that you have instilled in them.

Answer 8

To raise a child in a loving environment but make sure there is also discipline.

Answer 9

Doing what is necessary to assure that your child can, as an adult, live successfully and independently.

We as parents aren't going to live forever. We need to give our kids the tools, emotionally and capability-wise, to live without us as happy, well-adjusted and loving adults.

Answer 10

To teach children that we are more than ourselves. Everybody need to do their part in making the world a better place.