Introduction
By the influence of modernization and industrialization, economic, political and social changes began to happen, and these had an impact not only on people as such but also on families themselves. Families, their form and structure have developed over centuries. And as families developed, the problems of family life and parenthood also developed or changed. The problems that parents face today are entirely different from those that parents dealt with in the past. As mentioned earlier, the main influence on these changes was industrialization and later modernization. With the rise of industrialization, parenting problems such as helping children with field work, farm animals or other household tasks disappeared, for example. With industrialization, more and more people and parents started working in factories, so they no longer had time for field work. Since travel to cities was tiring and demanding, people also began to move there, and thus rural life slowly started to decline and change. After people relocated to cities, their personal and parenting problems also changed, and these became increasingly modern and thus radically different from those experienced by parents before modernization. These postmodern parenting problems concern everyone and need to be addressed in almost every family.
The Importance of the Family in Society
Every person belongs to a certain social community and, traditionally, that is the family. “The family is the primary context of human experience from cradle to grave. It is a certain kind of institution that has irreplaceable significance for human development and life. In addition to meeting physical, psychological and social needs, it provides a framework needed for social self-realization; it is a source of experiences and behavioral models for the rest of a person’s life” (Fischer, Škoda, 2009 in Laca, 2011). Pasternáková (2015) adds that “the family is the primary group that, after a child is born, becomes its first socializing factor and at the same time becomes a member of the child’s first social group. The family, the basic social group of society, consists of at least two family members. The family is made up of parents and children. We also include other family members in the family, such as grandmother, grandfather, cousins, aunt, uncle and many others. Family members follow behavioral patterns. Each family member fulfills a particular social role.” “A family founded on marriage is the basic unit of society. Society protects all forms of family in all respects” (Act No. 36/2005 Z. z., Family Act and amendments to selected laws). Family together with school also performs significant educational tasks, which complement each other (Průcha - Walterová - Mareš, 2009). No one of us should exist without a family. Even if there are people who have no family or do not know one, after birth a person belongs to some social group, whether with biological/alternative parents or institutions that take charge of the child. Family is for a person a basic pillar where they receive first knowledge, love and respect, acquire their first experiences, have their basic needs met, and can develop physically and psychologically.
Human Reproduction
In order for us to establish a family as humans, we need human reproduction, whose basis is “biosocial cycles.” Their first phase is the birth of a new generation. Even in these biological processes, human biology is complexly regulated by social life conditions, which influence the number and qualitative characteristics of the new generation, especially its capacity for successful physical, mental and social development. The second phase is upbringing, which develops these capacities. The way, intensity and extent of this development are primarily determined by the socio-economic framework of society and its political orientation. Parent training is followed by the phase of professional preparation and integrating the generation into the social division of labor, which are also defined by socio-economic characteristics and the society’s future needs. The next phase is again biological reproduction—the start of a new generation and therefore of a new cycle. Each cycle is influenced by the previous one and affects the next. It is an unrepeatable history not only of one generation but also of its initial and target base—the family” (Volná, 2003).
According to Popper (2013), the economic situation in a country strongly influences human reproduction and even partnerships. Recurrent economic crises, rising inflation, mortgage or loan burdens, the inability to find work after finishing school, or even the decreasing number of productive people are a poor prospect for young people to want to start families, even to want children, or to want more than one child.
If young people who are capable of reproduction do not see state support for young families in their country, they are not very motivated to start families. In our state, family policy support is lacking, which is a major loss. The state does provide certain benefits to partners who bring a child into the world in the form of various contributions, such as birth benefits, parental benefits and child allowances; however, depending on the economic factors mentioned earlier, the amount of these contributions is very low and in no way motivating for young couples. Weaknesses of family policy include, for example, no support for young families for housing, i.e., no support for their own housing or favorable mortgages. Another weakness is the short length of maternity leave and the conditions for eligibility for maternity benefits, etc.
Another influence (Popper, 2013) on why young people postpone parenthood is the previously mentioned problem of finding work after finishing secondary or higher education—namely, difficulties entering the labor market. If young people experience such a problem, they endure negative feelings in themselves such as disappointment, anger, frustration, and hopelessness and think only about how to survive in society and manage to support themselves. If a young person has this problem, they mainly address only their livelihood, mainly to keep their job and housing. Most young people want to secure basic needs such as food, housing and income, and only then consider their offspring. Another problem, or in this case an opportunity, that Popper sees for young people is that at this stage of life they have many advantageous opportunities to try different life paths. These include partnership relationships, learning about different countries, employment opportunities, and trying different hobbies before having children.
Therefore we cannot judge or condemn anyone for having or not having children. It is each person’s individual and intimate matter, one they can only influence themselves and no one else can. We never know how that person lives, what their lifestyle is, what life plans or goals they have, in what economic situation they are, what their health status is, or whether they long for or do not long for children.
According to a long-term study (Kokkoová et al., 2008 in Popper, 2013), which began in 1968, the choice to have a child has different consequences for women and men. The study was conducted on a sample of 173 women and 196 men aged 18 to 42 and found that relatively early parenthood (before age 25) is associated in women with many other significant changes such as: “maternity is associated with leaving the parental home, starting an intimate relationship, education, work. At the same time, early parenthood is mainly associated with lower educational attainment, lower job status and unstable career development. Unlike women, for men early fatherhood correlates only with an early start to an intimate relationship” (Popper, 2013).
“One of the main characteristics of reproductive behavior in most younger generations is the postponement of the parental debut to a higher age. This is also confirmed, for example, by the development in average age at first birth, which increased from just under 23 years (the second half of the 1980s) to the current 27.6 years. The increasing time variability of maternal and parental pathways is indirectly indicated, for example, by the widening interdecile interval. While in the first half of the 1990s 80% of total fertility occurred within a relatively narrow 9–10-year interval, today this share is spread across an interval of 15 years. This process of postponement does not concern only childless and unmarried women, but it is also identified among people who have already entered marriage. Increasingly more couples decide to become parents after a longer time since marriage. While at the end of the 1980s first children born two years after marriage accounted for only about 12% of the total number of first children born to mothers who gave birth, they currently make up more than one third” (Chorvát – Džambazovič, 2015).
Today, fortunately, men and especially women can choose and determine when and whether they want to enter a partnership, as well as whether and when they will have children. Unfortunately, even today we still experience social pressure, especially on women, where women very often encounter reproaches from others—when they will have children, when they will have a wedding, why they do not want children, or why they prefer a career over a family, etc.
The Family Is Foundational
As a society, we know various types of families. “In relation to family, even marriage is no longer a guarantee or condition for the emergence of a family. A subject of many discussions is precisely the diversification and pluralization of forms of family cohabitation. The current reality includes adoptive families, single-parent families, families in which parents are not married, child-free couples, families with homosexual parents, etc.” (Marková, 2012).
Biological families, when everything is in order, usually have their biological children. If, however, it is not possible to have a biological child naturally, a range of reasons may prevent conception in this way. “A disorder in biological-reproductive function occurs when parents cannot have children (fertility disorder) or, for genetic reasons, do not want children. Refusal of parenthood for non-biological reasons is usually related to the parents’ personality profile or to disruption of their relationship. A form of reproductive dysfunction may also be seen in the irresponsible birth of many children in socially maladapted families and in families of severely ill parents, where proper care of the child is not ensured” (Volná, 2003).
For a child, it is very important to grow up in a family if possible in a biological family where parents are in a blood relationship with the child. If this is not possible, it is better for the child to grow up in a social family rather than a biological one. These can be, for example, the previously mentioned adoptive families, single-parent families, families with homosexual parents, or even professional parent families. As for homosexual families, many people in the 21st century can still condemn such couples or families on the basis of some of their assumptions. But nothing indicates that these couples are unable or cannot raise children as correctly and with as much love as heterosexually founded families can. In fact, research on homosexual and lesbian families has found that such couples are equally capable of raising children as heterosexual parents when adopting (Kay - Klykylo, 2012). The role of a professional parent (Office of Work, Social Affairs and Family, 2017) is complex. It combines the role of parent and the role of professional educator. It is highly responsible and demanding work consisting of continuous care for a child who has specific needs because the child cannot grow up in their own biological family, as their parents cannot, do not want or cannot ensure care. “The main mission of the professional parent is to fulfill one of the child’s basic needs—the need for a close person with whom the child can form a relationship. This relationship should be reciprocal, not one-sided” (Office of Work, Social Affairs and Family, 2017). Child adoption is also common in Slovakia. It is the adoption of a child from an orphanage or another institution. Concerning research, “in the meta-analysis of adopted children (IJzendoorn and Juffer, 2006) there was only a slight increase in problems among adopted children compared to regular children, although adopted children were represented much more frequently among clients of mental health specialists. Meta-analyses comparing adopted and non-adopted children revealed that children in adoptive families have higher IQ and better school performance than children who either remained in a dysfunctional family or institution. Compared with the general population they scored equally in IQ tests, yet slightly lagged behind in school performance and language abilities, and more adopted children had learning problems” (Van IJzendoorn - Juffer - Poelhuis, 2005 in Bohovicová, 2010). Adoption as an option for children without parents or children growing up under unsuitable conditions has a more positive than negative influence on child development. For the child, it is always better to grow up in a biological or social family in harmony, with affection, caress, trust and safety than to be in an orphanage or in a biological or social family without safety, love and harmony.
Postmodern Society
“Postmodern society is often characterized as pluralistic. The term postmodern society denotes the spiritual and social climate of contemporary human society. There is a certain attempt at reflection. This society is opposed to uniformity. It is often also opposed to all functioning instruments of social control. It rejects the absolute in any area—art, politics, interpersonal and social relations. It emphasizes imaginative feelings in which heterogeneous worlds intersect and which point toward the division of power and the support of multiplicity in contemporary life cultures and scientific conceptions as well as social relations” (Laca, 2011).
“One of the distinctive traits that fundamentally determines the nature of postmodern existence is the absence of social structures. The frameworks with which life conduct must and may reckon have not disappeared altogether, but they are no longer constant as they once were” (Bauman, 2006, in Polačková, 2012). “If we enter a phase of postmodernity, it means that the trajectory of social development leads us away from the institutions of modernity toward a new and different type of social order” (Giddens, 1998, in Polačková, 2012).
The Family in Postmodern Society
The importance of family in a postmodern world (Kováčiková, 2022) “is growing directly in proportion to how humanity is struggling with global problems. While in the past the family was an economically self-sufficient unit, parents worked at home and children observed them directly, therefore upbringing occurred spontaneously. In this way they acquired necessary knowledge for life, which was supplemented by clarifying and explaining moral principles and norms. Over the course of historical social development, spontaneous family upbringing changed into deliberate upbringing that was supplemented especially by school education and environmental influences. Many traditional values changed, were questioned, but the value of family is rarely doubted. Human society, however, is being affected by various civilizational problems that do not bypass the family either. Therefore one of the urgent tasks that experts are trying to solve is strengthening the role of the family. From it, they expect follow-up changes in many problems, whether for present times or at least the near future. For a person to be able to meet the demands of life and of oneself, they need to live in fundamental securities and have established basic values, which only the family provides. Many contemporary authors stress the irreplaceable role of early-childhood upbringing in the family.”
According to de Singly (1999 in Mendelová, 2014), the current postmodern family is characterized as a family with intimate relations, representing a functioning “private space” for cohabitation of people who are connected. “A relational zone has been distinguished in it (the relationship between man and woman—the relationship of affinity, the relationship between parents and children—the relationship of filiation), permeated by emotional closeness between spouses (often already in the pre-marital dating period, with the decision to confirm it through marriage and conception of a child).”
Parenting Problems in Postmodern Society
For as long as people have been forming families, we can observe that in every era families and people who were part of them had certain problems and pitfalls. In every era, every century, these problems changed—some more, some less. Some even faded and some new ones were added. These problems that families go through and that parents experience while educating their children change and can do so even within several decades, sometimes even within only a few years. Of the problems and crises that occur in postmodern society there are several, but we selected for us those that are most substantial and serious, and which we believe are important and urgent to solve as soon as possible.
L. Rovňanová (2011, p. 266, in Kováčiková, 2022) among the crises of today’s family lists:
1. “Low parental involvement in child upbringing, rising aggression”
Aggression in children can manifest for different reasons. There is a possibility that children may inherit aggression from parents or other family members. In fact, there is up to a 60% chance that children inherit genetic predispositions to aggressiveness from their ancestors. Another, much more important factor is that children on almost 90% take over their parents’ behavior—literally copying what they see at home. It is enough that a child sees aggressive, negative or violent behavior at home, and then may interpret this behavior as correct, so they will also “apply” it in their environment. In addition to seeing such behavior at home or in their immediate surroundings, a child may use aggression to gain attention if they feel unnoticed by family or friends. Aggressive, rude, immoral and inappropriate behavior is caused primarily by very little parental engagement in raising the child. Unfortunately, in most cases these parents either do not have time for their children and their upbringing, or their upbringing of their children is so indifferent that they leave their children to “educate themselves.” Here another problem arises, because these parents usually do not want to see or do not notice that their child is behaving inconsistently with principles of proper conduct, and therefore it is difficult to address their child’s behavior when they themselves see no problem in it.
Could we add to this problem, which many families face, another problem that we believe is related to aggression and upbringing: non-use of educational styles by parents, or the use of a permissive educational style. In raising children, we know several educational styles. Among these styles is the permissive style, which focuses on accepting and prioritizing the child’s needs and demands over the parent’s demands and needs. “The parent applies a permissive style of influence without strong requirements for the child’s activity and behavior and without appropriate demands for engaging and including the child in family life” (Tamášová, 2006). The question is whether parents make a larger mistake when they do not apply any educational method to the child, or when they apply a permissive but, in our view, not very fortunate style of raising a child. A child needs to see certain authority in parents, needs to know the boundaries of what is and is not allowed, needs to see how a family functions and who has what position, roles and functions in it.
2. “Insufficiently effective teaching methods in school”
We all know that at school students not only learn but also are raised. According to the Pedagogical Dictionary, education is “purposeful and planned shaping of the person and provision of socio-pedagogical conditions that allow comprehensive development of personality and full development of one’s abilities” (Prucha, 1999). The process of upbringing should be part of every subject, without exception. However, the most priority subject that could and should help school students’ upbringing is ethical education, which “since its introduction as an experimental subject, has been characterized primarily as education for prosociality. Its foundation was the psychology of prosocial education created in the early 1990s in Spain by Professor R. R. Olivar. This system integrates 10 attributes forming good behavior” (Fridrichová, 2012). If this educational system in school fails for any reason, we can speak of an insufficiently effective way of raising and educating in school.
3. “Opportunities and dangers of ICT and the influence of the media”
Modern technologies have their pros and cons. They should make life easier, help us, save us time, inform us, etc. Unfortunately, besides these impressive innovations, they also bring negative effects. They do not only take our time in a negative sense; it can even happen that we become dependent on them. Beyond dependence on technology, children and adults are also influenced by media themselves, whether through radio, television, the internet, etc. It often happens that we find incorrect or misleading information online, but media can also present it to us, for example, through television. Since media and technology are now an inseparable daily part of our lives, we cannot avoid becoming dependent on them. It is not only dependence on mobile phones or tablets, but also dependence on other people’s opinions, because media can confuse or deceive us so that it can easily happen for a person to lose a healthy perspective, their own opinions and stances. It is therefore very necessary that we as people are able to properly and with a clear mind evaluate the information we hear or read and be able to take our own opinion and attitude toward it.
4. “Opportunities and ways children spend free time”
The way today’s children spend their free time is probably known to all of us—it is often very ineffective. Free time is no longer spent as it once was, when children spent all free time outdoors, played different games, built bunkers, played with toys, rode bikes, and devised their own activities ... or even attended numerous clubs, so besides school and club they had no time to be bored. Today children have to have activities invented by either a parent, an older sibling, or, if no activity is available, they use modern technology—computer, tablet or mobile phone. Here we could link to the previous problem. During the pandemic everything became much more difficult, and it was very hard to entertain or occupy a child, since closing schools and clubs most affected the child’s psyche. Not only during the pandemic but also in everyday life it is difficult to force a child to go to a club or do something meaningful. According to psychologist Nora Lauková (2020), “the time children spend outside school is tied to what parents prioritize. It is necessary that parents spend time with children and engage in activities together that are not only instructive but also enjoyable for children.” According to her, many parents want their child to develop beyond school, but it is alarming that almost half of children do not attend any club. “This is due to these children lacking interest and spending time in other ways, or parents preferring other forms of activity than interest clubs. It is beneficial for health that children attending clubs most often prefer sports and movement activities” (Lauková,2020).
5. “Pressure for performance and success of children and negative effects of contemporary lifestyle on children’s health”
One can often observe that especially modern parents place too much pressure on their children. They enroll them in too many clubs, they must have good grades at school, must be liked by friends, must help with household work, etc. Today’s children seem to have no time even to enjoy their childhood. Not only is it stolen by the aforementioned modern technology but also by exaggerated demands, pressure for performance and achievement from parents themselves. Children must attend multiple clubs in addition to school, study for school for the next day, help at home, and for rest there is hardly any time… and certainly not for childhood. We live in a hurried era where even parents seem to forget that they are raising children at home who have a right to childhood and are not robots that must carry out whatever they are told to do. This is not good for either their physical or mental health. As Prague child psychologist K. Porazilová put it, “the pressure for performance, for individual success and perfection keeps increasing; being good is not enough, I need to be exceptional at something. As if it were no longer enough to be satisfied and happy; as if modesty had lost its value” (Dušková, 2019). A child cannot itself realize that it is overly overloaded and therefore adults, namely parents, should supervise this. They must notice their children, they must know when it is time for work and when rest for their child, and it is also very important to observe warning signs that the child nonverbally indicates, that they are simply overloaded and need to rest.
According to us, among other problems or crises occurring in today’s families are:
6. Life in an Incomplete Family
Life in an incomplete family can have a very large impact on a child. Whether one is talking about single mothers or fathers or children from divorced families, unless we have personally lived it ourselves we cannot even imagine what it is like to live in an incomplete family.
Divorce is the legal termination of marriage. When people entered marriage they were convinced it would last forever. Even when problems emerged in marriage, they typically tried to resolve them together rather than ending the relationship immediately. Just as the family changed and developed, so people and interpersonal relationships changed. A current relationship phenomenon in postmodern society is that if something goes wrong in a relationship, only very few couples want to solve it or seek professional help, such as a couple therapist or marital counseling. Today couples address their disagreements, conflicts and differing opinions with immediate separation or divorce. The greatest impact falls on the children if the couple has any. Divorces have existed in our society from time immemorial, but during the last two years of the pandemic the number of divorce petitions in Slovakia decreased. As MSSR (2021) reports, “the number of divorce petitions in 2020 compared with 2019 decreased by 10.6 percent from 11.6 thousand to almost 10.4 thousand. Between 2018 and 2019 the number of divorce petitions decreased by only 197 filings, which is 1.67 percent. A slightly declining trend in divorce petitions has been recorded in the Slovak Republic regularly since 2010. This does not necessarily mean stabilization of the institution of marriage; it may reflect changes in social relationships and family stereotypes, i.e., different ways partners live together.”
According to experts, in children whose parents are divorcing or have divorced one can observe certain problems such as (Érseková, 2018):
- problems with managing anger—anger at oneself, anger at parents,
- disobedience, oppositional behavior,
- rule breaking at home, in kindergarten, and at school,
- sadness, depressive experiences,
- anxiety, insecurity, powerlessness,
- mistrust and doubts,
- feelings of despair and guilt,
- a feeling of pain.
On children, the separation of parents can leave the deepest and largest traces, greater than in the parents who divorce. These traces may be visible or not, but they can also appear several years later, for example in problems in their own partnership relationships. For this reason it is very important that spouses with children carefully consider such a serious step in their partnership life, because it affects not only them but most of all their children.
7. The Problem of Forming and Internalizing Values
Having a value system is very important for every person. Values should be instilled in each of us from an early age by our family, and later each of us should create our own values. But some people have trouble accepting and certainly creating values of their own that are truly valuable to them. When people are asked what values they have, very few list at least five, because the most common problem is not that they have none (or they have too few), but that many people do not even realize what the word value truly means. Many adults do not have clarity about what is valuable for them, what their values are, or they do not behave according to their values or often violate them. And since, as already mentioned, adults and especially parents are mirrors for children, it is very likely that if children see such behavior in adults, they will repeat it. It is therefore very important that adults also have their own values, adhere to them and especially guide their own children toward establishing values.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we can conclude that human reproduction in today’s postmodern society is beginning to decline or being postponed to a later age—but this should not have to happen if family policy can be improved. And not only that; it will also be necessary to improve the better economic situation of young people who are in reproductive age so they are more motivated to have children and not afraid they will not be able or might not be able to economically support their family. It would be appropriate to work on encouraging young people so that the average age of first-time mothers decreases rather than rises. It would be appropriate to establish programs that would offer women—future mothers—the possibility to have children at a young age while they can also fulfill their dreams, whether education, travel, career, etc. The problems of the postmodern family concern all families equally. Over the last centuries, the family has undergone significant visible change, which has certainly had consequences for the problems occurring in today’s postmodern families. Of all parenting problems, we would choose at the end two that are most substantial for us: neglect in child upbringing and the influence of media and ICT—because there is nothing worse for us than a society of people behaving immorally, without their own opinion or judgment, and dependent on the most modern technologies. Of course, there are much more problems than those we mentioned and chose as the most serious, but we consider these parenting problems to be the most important and ones that should be addressed and solved as soon as possible. After all, children are our future and will one day shape our society; therefore we should not neglect their upbringing and education, but should care for them with love, respect and humility.
Author: Mgr. Zuzana Uličná
This article was created with the support of grant UGA 5/11/2022 - Attitudes toward Motherhood and Their Ethical Contexts.
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