Living in a Restricted World When an adolescent asks his or her parent about the issue of morals, they tend to receive the frequent response, “You are too young to worry about such things.”An excerpt of “I listen to My Parents and I Wonder What They Believe,” by Robert Coles, theorizes that parents avoid uncomfortable questions because parents do not know their own beliefs. Parents, under the false presumption that children do not encounter moral issues in their adolescent years, strive to protect their “innocent” children from the harsh realities of the world. As a result, the moral abdication of a parent restricts the advancement of a child’s personal morals.
First, children replicate established beliefs and mannerisms set by parents in order to gain an understanding of the world around them. Robert Coles interviews one child who says, “You should honor your father and mother most of all; that’s why you should find out what they think and then sort of copy them.”(Coles, 1980, p.439) The moral abdication of parents restricts the advancement of a child’s personal morals because children are under the presumption that they are to copy their parents. A child, then restricted to the beliefs of the parents, remain unable to discern for themselves. “Moral education is something more than a series of
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“We do not see that our children also make ethical decisions every day in their own lives. . .how attuned that may be to moral currents and issues in the larger society.”(Cole,1980, p.438) Parents, desiring to preserve that innocence, tend to focus on the emotional aspect of a child’s life rather than the deeper intellectual aspect of it. Parents do not realize both aspects of a child’s life need attention. “Children need and long for words of moral advice, as much as they need words of affirmation or criticism from their parents. . .”(Cole,1980,