Parenting: The Most Important Human Activity!

by Thea Halo

Probably the most important activity in a human being’s life is parenting. Even animals know the importance of parenting for the survival of their offspring. Yet in the US, and in most countries around the world, parenting skills are left to chance, or to what one learns from one’s own parents. This sometimes leads to disastrous results, as one’s parents are sometimes just as ill equipped as the child to know how to raise well adjusted, kind, productive members of society who will at least have a chance of fulfilling healthy ambitions that benefit themselves and society at large.

Reports of gun violence and mass murders are on the rise, and children are often left to fend for themselves, adopting like minded associates who are sometimes just as ill-equipped to know how to lead a productive life.

So I would like to propose a Resolution to be presented to the US Congress. If you think it’s worthy, please support this resolution by writing to your own legislators. Send them a link to this blog as a suggested Resolution.

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H. Res. ___

In the House of Representatives, U. S.,

March 10, 2022.  

Whereas the most important activity in which humans take part is parenting; 

H. Res. ___

In the House of Representatives, U. S.,

March 10, 2022.  

Whereas “proper parenting or child rearing promotes and supports the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood”;

Whereas proper parenting skills prepare the next generations to lead healthy, productive lives;

Whereas young parents are often unprepared for the rearing of healthy, well-adjusted children;

Whereas poverty, lack of education, poor parenting skills, and isolation are often precursors to our youth looking for, and finding alternative ‘families’ among other alienated members of society;

Whereas poverty, lack of education, and isolation are often precursors to a life of crime;

Whereas poverty, lack of education, and isolation are also often precursors to drug abuse;

Whereas poverty, lack of education, and isolation often contribute to the inability of the next generation to raise healthy, well-adjusted children of their own; 

Whereas the cycle of alienation and exclusion from society is often a pernicious result of improper parenting and a lack of education; 

Whereas “According to statistics compiled by the Guttmacher Institute, the US has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the developed world.”

Whereas lack of sex education often contributes to unplanned pregnancies in our youth;

Whereas parenting skills do not always come naturally to all parents;

Whereas young parents sometimes learn from parents who were ill equipped to properly parent and prepare their children for a well adjusted, productive life;

Whereas education is the most important aspect of parenting for both the child and the parent;

Whereas proper parenting more often insures the raising of healthy, well adjusted adults who will have a better chance at being fully integrated into society in a healthy, productive manner;

Whereas healthy, educated, well adjusted adults usually add to the health, wealth, and well-being of the nation; 

Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that it is the policy of the United States to: 

(1) make it mandatory to teach a course on parenting in all Junior/Middle Schools;

(2) make sex education mandatory in all Junior/Middle Schools;

(3) make lunches free for all students in public schools;

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Thea Halo is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir, Not Even My Name, a former news correspondent for WBAI in NYC, and a former producer for public radio in upstate NY. Not Even My Name was instrumental in garnering the first state-level resolutions in the U.S. that recognized the genocide of the Pontian and other Asia Minor Greeks and Assyrians. She was a co-sponsor and driving force, along with Prof. Adam Jones, of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) resolution that affirmed the Ottoman Genocides of Pontian and other Asia Minor Greeks and Assyrians as comparable to the genocide of the Armenians. She has also published a collection of poetry, and a number of Thea’s historical papers on the Genocides of Greeks and Assyrians have been published in books on the Ottoman Genocides. In 2009, Thea, along with her mother, Sano Halo, who passed away in 2014 at the age of 105, were awarded honorary Greek citizenship by the Greek government. In 2002, Thea was awarded the AHEPA Homer Award and, in 2012, the Association of Greek American Professional Women honored Thea and Sano for their “Profound contribution to Literature and to Hellenic Cultural Heritage and History.” Thea has also won numerous awards for her poetry and literary essays.