Custom «Child Care and Intimacy» Essay Paper Sample

Family relationships are built, when people stay together and feel a close touch of each other. Intimacy is very crucial in building good family relationships. However, this is becoming a challenge in the modern society. This is more evident with the changing work place. Parents hardly get enough time to be with their, especially with their children. The interaction of children and adults is one to be highly treasured. As a person becomes a parent, change becomes imminent. It is obvious, nowadays, that the parent becomes instantly more mature and is compelled to take on many responsibilities. All the same, each parent will agree that it is the best kind of feeling that an individual can have. It is actually a privilege to bring up a child in the world we live in, and most importantly a very special thing to start a family. The only impediment to family matters is the working trends that have affected the intimacy needed to create strong parent-child relationship.

We may really want to know what a family exactly is. Family can be defined as a sexually expressive or parent-child or other relative relationship, where people live as one with an obligation in a close interpersonal relationship. Members of the family see their identity as significantly attached to the entire group, which has its own identity. Such group of family members needs intimacy and close relationship. However, this is daily challenged by the nature of work that parents are involved in to provide for the family. Families, in the contemporary society, take on different forms: remarried, dual career, single-parent, traditional, homosexual and communal among others. Many more families are endeavoring to make the connection of family and work fit together.

There are quite a number of issues that working parents encounter such as when the member will go back to work, stress, finances, division of labor, marital strain and many more issues including child care. The latter has been greatly challenged since working parents have been denied the intimacy necessary for a healthy family relationship. All the same, these three things connect together and are equally important. Intimacy is good for the family and, at the same time, work is of equal importance. Striking a balance between these three factors has been the greatest challenge for all.

Traditionally, men had the responsibility of providing food for the family. However, the recent years have painted a completely different picture. The role has completely changed. Women are no longer left with the sole responsibility of bringing up children. They have also taken up work to supplement the men’s role in working. This has created some challenge for child care and many more child care centers have emerged to address this looming problem. It is amazing how a child at a tender age is attached to somebody else other than the parent because they are busy working elsewhere. Family reunion is becoming difficult to get. There is no intimacy between the parent and the child and this may result in some kind of pre-conceived neglect. This is the trouble that working families can bring upon their children. In most cases, the different types of maltreatment on a child do not happen in isolation from other kinds of family violence, disorder and abuse. The intimacy needed for the child from the parent exposes the child to unsafe environments. Parents have left their children because they need to go to work, hence, doing more harm than good to their children.

Many women have white collar jobs and are working hard to bring food to the family. Conventionally, it is easy to think that men bring the entire money home as the women stay home with the children. All the same, dual carriage marriages in this decade are becoming common and women are going back home to the “second shift”, making reference to the unpaid work in the house. Women are averagely spending many hours doing housework. Men are starting to take on other duties in the family unlike was the case before. Wives and husbands are sharing responsibilities, not merely leaving it to either the wife or the husband. This has been brought about by issues of work. All focus and attention has shifted to work and responsibilities in the family. There is no time for one another. A successful healthy family really needs intimacy, money resources and proper child care. However, the challenge has been attaining a balance of these three things.

Intimacy in the family is having time for one another and having a touch of the emotional and psychological feeling of one another. Essentially, emotional attachment addresses very many issues facing the family. There is much more solution in family matters in having intimate relationships that can be found through money and such like work related benefits. However, we cannot declare work as unimportant. Work for both parents is good but should not override the interest of the family. Family interest is achieving healthy relationships through intimate associations. Work comes in handy to provide material needs for the family. It is necessary to realize how important it is to balance all these factors. If one of them is overdone, then, it ruins the other two, which are equally significant in creating harmonious and healthy existence within the family.

When issues of work for parents arise, the children are most affected. Children need parental care, which is useful for their psychological development. Going to work at the expense of the children denies them the right to good quality care. What a child needs is provision in all aspects of life. While parents are making work commitment to provide food, it would be naive to think that this is all that the child needs. The child needs the parent. Intimacy is as good as material provision. It defines a good family and strong bonds necessary for stable relationships. People have been tirelessly looking for options to deal with this. There have been options sought for working around this problem. Many people have sought to switch to jobs based at home. Part-time jobs have also come in handy in dealing with the issue. Positive development has been realized though much communication is required that highlights the significance of working, child care and intimacy in their maximum application.

Returning to the workforce after having a baby needs to be analyzed, based on the intimacy and care needed for the child. Such decisions are supposed to be made before the child is born. The parents are supposed to contemplate about how to cope with the child that becomes part of their life and the manner, in which things change. When a woman realizes that she is pregnant, she encounters a choice that needs to be made. This choice will affect the woman for the entire life. The main issues of concern include: work, cleaning time, taking care of the child, day care provision. All this needs to be carefully addressed. From a personal point of view, a married couple should sit down and discuss how to handle such an eventuality.

Some people would want to put their children in day care, while others may not make such preference. However, the former has been a common trend and practice in the contemporary society. The society is plagued with issues of child care and loads of work needed to create a healthy family status. Children are being enrolled in a day care. Husbands and wives are switching shifts, where one of them works during the day and the other works at night in order to spend quality time with the children and provide the intimacy that is needed. At the same time, not many people would like to stay home with the children and neither is any one ready to stay without work. This clearly shows how these three things are important. Working is good and staying with the children is also good. The bottom line is having enough intimacy for the children, while making sure that there is sufficient provision through work. This is mainly because being with the children will have a meaning, when there is enough to share materially and emotionally.

Every parent wants to play their part financially in the family. Women mainly spend quality time with their children, while bathing, playing, feeding and reading. Unemployed women have much more time to spend with their children. We are still in a muddle not knowing what to prioritize in the family. The family is the basic unit of organization in the society and determines a lot in building the larger society. At the same time, the society needs to develop. A working society is bound to develop and increase its borders. There is a lot of concern how much the society wants to work at the expense of the basic unit that acts as the fabric holding it together, the family. Matters related to work have been a concern for the intimacy that is required to make sure that a family succeeds appropriately. Childcare is still disadvantaged and there is much that needs to be done to ensure that all is well in the family.

Well, we may ask ourselves, what can be better than beginning a family? In a family, the parents pass on their genes to the next generation. There is no bigger challenge in the society than to raise the young one with values and morals. This happens to be the greatest thing in the life cycle. While death is part of such a cycle, it is actually amazing the way the world keeps on turning across generations. Even with all the shake ups, bad and good times, child care needs to be well handled. Life is a gift and should be passed on in the right manner. The link between family intimacy, work and child care are many. It is all about finding a balance between all these three. Families happen to be the center for all things in the world. We should all take a step back and actually see how lucky we should be. Nothing should be taken for granted, be it work, child care or family intimacy. It is important to tell the people close to you that you actually adore and appreciate them. This is actually important. Work, child care and intimacy intertwine. None of these three should override the others. A balanced effort to keep these three equally important would see a better family.