The Shared Care podcast is part of the CAREdiZO campaign for gender equality in caregiving and in the workplace. In the third episode, our guest is Aneta Valeva. Listen to it here https://o pen.spotify.com/episode/0pNnx0oX9XlY8HuD7s521y?si=eSVnx3urQx-e0SI4b2JIPw
Transcript of episode 3
Welcome to the new episode of the podcast Shared Care within the CAREdiZO campaign. I am the host Natasha Zarankova.
With us today is Aneta Valeva, psychologist and secretary of the Municipal Commission for Combating Antisocial Behavior in Gotse Delchev. With her we will discuss an extremely important and increasingly relevant topic - parenting through the prism of gender equality.
Nowadays, parenting is a big challenge in itself. It involves many tasks, such as raising children, daily care for them, upbringing, helping with education and many other important commitments. What is being a parent really like and what does it require?
Parenting is perhaps the most important role we have in our lives. To create new life, to preserve it, to build it. And it is a role that builds the basic network of our society and bears fruit in the future according to how parents have raised their children and how they have prepared them for life.
Then they become full-fledged adults who shape the structure of society and how developed, progressive, with rules, with the possibility of a good life and a high quality of life in this society. So an extremely, extremely important role is the role of parents.
Accordingly, do parents need support to be able to take better care of their children?
Well, yes, I would say that they already need such support. Unlike in the past, when somehow parents instinctively understood and followed traditional ways of communicating with children, it was important for the child to survive, to provide food, shelter, clothing, education for the children and for them to be involved in some kind of work. And families were much larger, many generations lived together in a common home, in a common occupation, so children participated in everything that their parents did from a very young age. But nowadays, people's lifestyles have changed a lot.
We live in a time where there is a lot more division between generations. At the same time, parents are faced with completely new challenges, completely new problems that they have to deal with. For example, technology nowadays puts parents under enormous pressure, enormous tension, because on the one hand they are handling much more technology themselves, it puts a strain on their mentality. The work of many parents is also related to processing a huge amount of information, and on the other hand, children are also exposed from a very young age, even before they are born, I would say, immediately after they are born, to a lot of technological exposure, contact with very dangerous information channels for their development, which parents have a responsibility to limit. And in this sense, they face completely new challenges and difficulties in how to establish a full relationship with the child and at the same time maintain the traditional roles in parenting, which are related to care, given that motherhood is limited and the parents themselves also have to work.
Is that what led you to create a parenting skills club? Can you tell us more about it?
Yes, that's one of the reasons I initiated this club.
Currently, it is part of our summer preventive program I Choose Good, which we organize from the Municipal Commission for Combating Antisocial Behavior of Minors and Juveniles. And this year again we had a very large number of children, over 200 children, who participated in this program. I can say that the group of parents who wanted to improve their skills is about 20 people.
And I'm so glad that there is interest in such a club. I would like it to be even bigger and I hope that in the future this club will develop and attract more and more parents. Still, some time is required - 1-2 hours a week to be set aside to attend it.
And sometimes it seems impossible for parents to fit in any more time that they can spare. But the people who are involved are really very aware, and I really enjoy all of our meetings.
And do more mothers or more fathers participate in it?
There are more mothers.
Years ago, I participated in a project called "Growing Up Together" by UNICEF. And we conducted workshops for parents of young children. There, too, such a ratio was observed. The majority were mothers. Men also got involved. And I would say they were one of the most regular visitors to the clubs.
We currently have two dads enrolled. Most are mothers. They are very open, very focused on self-improvement.
People with whom I find it extremely pleasant to communicate, because after all, we are equal there. Although there are presenters, there are participants, but we are absolutely equal. As a parent, I also enjoy communicating with these other parents, who are mostly mothers.
There must be other institutions that provide support to parents, right?
There is also a Center for Public Support in Gotse Delchev. Of course, there are institutions for working with children. There are now more and more psychologists in the schools, pedological counselors. Teachers are very open to partnership, to conversations with parents. Kindergartens are also striving to work more and more with parents. Again, let us remind a person, regardless of whether a woman or a man, should not think too much before turning to specialists for help, to people who could help.
We are gradually moving towards equal parenting. My next question is, do you observe a sharing of child-caring responsibilities between mothers and fathers?
It's different in every case. Sometimes there are also broken families, single parents.
Sometimes there is a division of duties and responsibilities in parenting, in the household. The most common cases are when a woman is expected to take care of both the household and the children, their upbringing. Also, very often these are working mothers, so I still have the feeling that in our society the responsibility for household duties, for raising children is traditionally directed towards the mother.
What are the consequences of mothers being the primary caregivers?
Well, on the one hand, this is very good. This is a basic psychological thread in the role of a woman anyway. So her full communication with the child nourishes her and gives her the opportunity to feel good, complete and to give love and support to the child, which is extremely important.
On the other hand, when it is a working mother and she also has to take care of the maintenance of the entire home, things become a little more busy and I can say that the consequences can sometimes be negative. Such a long-term accumulation of tension, fatigue, and overwork then leads to some problems that women experience. Related to their mental health, their ability to rest, sometimes anxiety disorders and depression occur.
Gradually, when an overload has accumulated over the years, especially when there is no full-fledged communication in the partner couple, when somehow the woman does not feel understood, supported by her partner, then she turns to a psychologist for help, as I have had cases in my practice.
If a woman is overwhelmed with the cares of the family and raising her children, could she be effective in positive parenting?
Well, it's harder in this situation when... as they say, you can't pour from an empty cup.
So, when a person is overloaded, stressed, exhausted, there are fewer options when there is some difficult situation with the child. And it is more difficult for a person to mobilize, I would say, mentally, so as to respond in a more positive way. The parent who is exhausted is much more inclined to immediately name the mistake, to try to punish, to try to ... , with all the strict measures, to stop this behavior that he does not like in the child.
In this sense, the best thing for any child is a calm, controlled, empathetic parent next to him, who connects with him in a more complete way, supporting and at the same time giving frameworks, giving rules, norms, but with a huge resource of encouragement , with a huge resource of love and care for the child. So positive parenting is exactly that. Rather, we need to give ourselves enough care for ourselves, so that we can pour patience from our cup into the child's cup, to set a good example, because children learn mainly by watching us.
That is, parents are largely the ones who educate and shape the way in which children, as future parents, will take on their roles.
And what stops men from participating more equally in home care?
First of all, these are the stereotypes that they have mastered since their childhood. In fact, I would say that even the family memory, even the society, the culture in which this person grows up, has an influence.
We store information from generations back about what was in the relationships between people, generations, generations ago. There is already a lot of scientific research, by the way, in this direction. Not only in terms of these social roles, but also in very deep personal processes.
Accordingly, I think this is the main perception, a model that is so traditional, that is socio-culturally conditioned and one accepts it as the norm. At the same time, when the man also works, he is focused exclusively on his role, which in modern society is to provide financial resources so that the family is financially secure. In the past, the man had to hunt, to provide warmth, take care of some basic living conditions in the home, which are now technologically guaranteed.
But at the same time, the man is expected to provide the financial resources for the family, and this puts men under a lot of psychological pressure. They are extremely focused in this direction. This is also not easy to deal with psychologically, but on the other hand, this focus gives them reason to say, here is the traditional role of the mother, the woman, she should take care of the rest.
And so it's accepted as a rule that this is something. On the other hand, men are also sometimes afraid that they don't know how to do these things, that they won't be good enough at it, like a woman is good at these activities, whether it's cooking or cleaning or taking care of the children. And they're afraid that they won't be good enough at it.
The other thing they are afraid, in my opinion, is that if they make a mistake, if they make a mistake, they will then have to deal with all the negative consequences that these mistakes would bring. But in fact, the desire is much more important than doing something in the best possible way. And precisely assuming that things do not have to be perfect, someone does not have to be without mistakes, without any omissions, what is more important is the desire, the attitude, the readiness and the trust in a family.
In summary, what is your advice to couples and parents on dealing with the challenge that home care actually poses?
As I mentioned earlier, the modern way of life already offers new conditions. And the most natural and logical thing is that between the two sexes in a partnership, between a man and a woman, there should be more equality in terms of both household duties and childcare. And it is precisely in such families where this is built that things are really very harmonious and I think that we should move in this direction.
On the one hand, the woman again has to take care of the home and the children, but at the same time she also has to work. So justice, balance, must be preserved in these partnership relationships.
Finally, I would like to thank our guest Aneta Valeva for revealing to us, as a psychologist, important aspects of combining parenting and home care work.
The podcast was created by the National Business Development Network under the CAREdiZO Project - CAREdiZO- CARE Driven Innovation for Gender mainstreaming in Home, Micro-Enterprises & Micro-CSOs, funded by the EU under the "Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values" program.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European or the Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the awarding authority can be held responsible for them.