Parenting is one of the most challenging responsibility bestowed upon us. Bringing a new life in this world and ensuring its proper growth and development is a very committed task. Parents face new challenges at every phase of growth of the child and parenting involves new dimensions to be tackled.

Let us discuss the issues and challenges concerning parenting at various life stages of an individual.

1. Parents of Infants : It was found that mother played the most important role for the newly born child. The challenges get severe if it is the first child. For the first few days after delivery even she is in great pain and very unsure of how to handle the newly bestowed responsibility. The most important job is feeding the baby and both the baby and the mother take time to synchronize and adjust the sucking process. The baby sleeps most of the time and whenever it wants to convey anything it cries. It gets very frustrating at times when the reason why the baby is crying is not clear.

2. Parents of Babies : In this phase also mother plays a very important role and the baby interprets the world from the eyes of their mother. They feel a sense of security and comfort in the presence of their mothers. Although learning of the baby is an accumulative process in which all the people of the family have important role to play and they do leave strong impressions on the baby. Today lot of challenges are being faced as a lot of mothers are working and the family is nuclear comprising only the couple and the child. In these cases mothers need to do lot of adjustments to balance work and motherhood. Some of the mothers were found to leave their child in crèche and some appointed a care taker to take care of the child. It is found that in these cases the child feels insecure and whenever they are in presence of their mothers they demand full attention and try to do all sorts of activities to attract them. However, it was even found that in cases where the care taker was very motherly and caring the child found his mother in her and wanted her more than his mother. The child never differentiates people in terms of their status etc and reciprocates love and care for those who does love him irrespective of anything. It was found that the challenges became greater when the child starts walking. As then it is required to have a vigilant eye on the child continuously as it can run and fall anytime. Another interesting observation was the increasing interest of fathers in parenting. Today fathers are more interested and take lot of effort in the parenting compared to their earlier counterparts.

3. Parents of Children : The greatest challenge faced by the parents are behavioral. The child starts getting stubborn and adamant. They start comparing themselves with their peers and start demanding for things. It was found that today parents faced lot of problems for the admission of their children in schools. Parents want to provide their child the best possible education and admissions are very tough these days. It involves a long process of oral and written test of the child followed by oral test of the parent and sometimes the parents even need to take the written exam. In many cases even when the child gets selected but the parents are not able to perform well, the child does not get admission. Also it has been found that parents put lot of pressure on the child to perform well in academics. They want him to be best in everything and this pressure robs away the childhood from the child.

4. Parents of Adolescents : Parents are in a state of shock once their child enters the adolescent period. Their children start answering back, arguing and defying even on the simplest of issues like food timings, clothes, waking and sleeping times, studies etc. They start having more privacy and start spending lot of time on phone, sms, internet chatting etc. It is very surprising for parents to find out what they talk about the whole day. They spend almost the whole day with their friends and even after they reach home they again start talking to them. They get totally cut off from social activities. They need to be forced to visit their relatives, temple etc. There is an added interest in the opposite sex. They spend lot of time talking about them and are very curious to know more and more about them. It is found that in early adolescent the problems are more striking and intriguing. Boys are very much aware of their cracking of voice, gain in height, increase in body hair while girls are little embarrassed about development of breasts and menarche. But once these changes stabilizes towards the end of the adolescent then the problems are not as serious as it was before. It was also found that the parents are very much concerned with the career choices and future of their children .

5. Parents of Adults : Parents of adult children need to readjust their lives in various ways. In most of the cases it is found that many of them move out of their houses for further studies or jobs. This severely affect their morale especially that of the mothers who have devoted their entire life in the upbringing of their children. The mothers who are housewives start feeling a vacuum in themselves. Suddenly they find lot of time in hand and they move into depression. Moreover, it has been observed that the parents of adults are concerned primarily with two issues: Settling them in personal (i.e. getting married) and professional (i.e. their career) lives. They are very excited about getting their children married and they have lots of dreams and expectations of their future son or daughter in law. The situation again changes when their children get married. The case is different for sons and daughters. The feeling of loneliness increases with the marriage of the daughter. In case of son's marriage lot of readjustment is required when a new daughter-in-law comes in the family. The dynamics of the house changes with the new entry. The adjustments are easier when the daughter-in-law is of their choice but in case of love marriage when the parents do not approve of their daughter-in-law lot of problems emerge. It was found that in two cases where only the mother was alive, she felt so insecure with her new daughter-in-law and got so possessive with her son that both the marriage ended in divorce. Moreover, it has been found that at times there are mistakes from the side of the daughter-in -law as well. She just wants to continue the way she used to in her parents house which is of course not desirable as each family is different and unique. In few of the cases they were so rigid with their own ideals that it was difficult for them to mould in accordance to the new surroundings and this resulted in the separation of the son with his family. However, it was found that situation improves with the birth of grandchildren. The family binding and acceptance becomes stronger. Moreover, it has been found that in case of business families when the son starts working with his father many a times there is lot of conflicts with relation to their different working style. There is lot of undercurrent found between the father and son.

6. Middle Age : The parents of middle age children are in their last lap of life: the old age. Their children are in their middle age and thus both their personal and professional life is well settled. They are totally independent. Thus at this juncture in life they don't need their parents for their physical or financial needs as compared to their childhood or adulthood. They are only tied to their parents emotionally. It was found that the feelings were mixed. In case of families which is very tightly knit there the old parents are respected and they feel secured. They are sure that their children will take full care of them. They had a complete family with children, grand children and in some cases great grand children. However in families where relations are not so warm old age brings lot of insecurity among the parents. In fact, it was found that in cases where one of the spouse dies, then the other person becomes totally lonely and completely resigned to themselves.

Thus each phase of child development throws the parents in a totally unknown territory with new issues and experiences. Being a parent is a blessing but as we know in life nothing comes for free so even this blessing has got lot of responsibilities attached to it.