Parenting

There are many different styles of parenting, some are dominating, some passive or permissive. But the ones I don't get are the MIA (aka Missing In Action) parents.

It is a phenomenon that is increasingly happening in Malaysia where parents leave their children with their grandparents in their hometowns and husband and wife stay in the cities to work. Those whose hometowns are near the cities visit their children once a week but some children only get to see their parents maybe 3 to 4 times a year.

I suppose they are taking a leaf from their counterparts from Indonesia and the Philippines who for decades have had to leave their children in their home countries to eke out a living under hostile conditions in neighbouring countries.

I can understand if one is working as a maid and therefore quite impossible to bring your children to live with you; or perhaps you stay in the company hostel or in the construction site where it is not conducive living for children. But the MIA parents that I'm talking about are middle class professionals who live comfortably in fancy houses, drive fancy cars but somehow do not have the capacity or dare I say inclination, to take care of their children.

Perhaps they think that their kampungs/hometowns are better places to bring up children and so they leave their children there; but my question is what about their role as parents? Is it only to bring the children to the world and provide materially for them? Will we one day see children who only know their parents by name, not by deed and who are not emotionally attached to them? Will we one day see professional child care centres that operate 24/7, like old folks homes, and parents only see their children when it is convenient?

Will there be a day when true parenting skills are lost or worse, no longer relevant?