“Taking children seriously does not depend on being rich. I myself was an extremely impecunious single parent family. Many parents taking their children seriously are currently very poor indeed. Indeed many parents taking their children seriously choose less-well-paying work that they can do from home so that they can be with their children more. They just have very different priorities from other people.”
– Sarah Fitz-Claridge
“I cannot afford the bus and ferry fares to the Outer Hebrides, never mind buying a scheduled plane ticket to Outer Mongolia to be with my daughter. Is Taking Children Seriously only for the rich?”
Certainly not! Taking children seriously does not depend on being rich. I myself was an extremely impecunious single parent family. Many parents taking their children seriously are currently very poor indeed. Indeed many parents taking their children seriously choose less-well-paying work that they can do from home so that they can be with their children more. They just have very different priorities from other people.
If I did not have the money in the bank, I would borrow it from a friend or relative and find a way of working it off or something. What a parent taking their children seriously would not do is to take the view that there is no way to solve the problem, or no way to get the money, and give up. Once you take that view, you make it highly unlikely that you will ever solve the problem. (Perhaps the solution to the problem might not involve you flying to Outer Mongolia at all. Or perhaps you have a friend who has always wanted to go there, whom your daughter likes a lot and would love to see instead of you? Or perhaps there is some other solution that would be better than anything I can think up in the abstract.)
For parents taking their children seriously, finding a way to solve such seemingly impossible-to-solve problems is all part of the fun. We can do hard things! Problems are soluble, and we can solve them! When your child wants to spend a considerable period in an expensive country on the other side of the word, and everyone tells you it is obviously impossible, and you nevertheless find a way to make it happen, it is exhilarating!
See also:
- Dead Poets Society: a film review
- Children do not need bedtime routines
- The Keeping-One’s-Options-Open mentality
Sarah Fitz-Claridge, 2022, Taking Children Seriously FAQ: ‘Is Taking Children Seriously only for the rich?’, https://takingchildrenseriously.com/is-taking-children-seriously-only-for-the-rich/