Religion and Parenthood
Dr Fourie’s perspective on the importance of religion
By: Dr Pieter Fourie
Something has happened over the past 50 years that has accelerated exponentially, especially since the introduction of the internet. Somehow, as a world population, we have started to move away from religion and attached ourselves to the internet as the ultimate guideline to direct our thoughts and behaviour. This has had a dramatic effect on our psychological well-being. Whereas before, an individual would have sourced her/his emotional strength from her/his religious directives, the internet presents the individual with an unlimited array of psychological support options, such as mindfulness, self realization, and mental strength guidelines to name a few.
Parents with children, especially in the pre-teen and teen group, will probably agree that it is one of the most challenging phases in their lives to find meaning and self-worth. This is clear from the large number of young children ending up taking antidepressants to lessen anxiety and support their daily emotional fluctuations. The Covid pandemic has escalated the increased anxiety, and children’s confidence and self worth are at an all time low. I see this daily in my practice, with parents relatively lost to guide their children as they themselves struggle with the same issues.
Combining the loss of religious directives with what we are experiencing here, it is highly suggestive that the absence of a higher power, where one could have gone to for guidance and strength, trickles down to our inability to direct our children. The psychological support offered by the internet is mostly self directed and in itself questionable so that it fails to act as a guidance law that can support our decisions and child rearing.
The original concept of an omnipotent god directing our moral and social lifestyles to which we owe allegiance gave us as parents a very stable reference point which was supposed to be handed down from one generation to another. As always, the younger generation, especially during the pre-teen and teenage phase, will question our moral and disciplinary actions, but in time will come to some form of acknowledgment that it is required to protect and guide their own thoughts and actions.
My plea therefore is to reinvestigate our decision to divorce ourselves from a religious source. Ultimately it is the only form of psychological and emotional support that has withstood the test of time and has not been watered down to some senseless self-directed technique. If we do not reorganize our guidance priorities we will increasingly experience a disruption of the family dynamics to the point of complete psychological apathy.