I was doing my own thinking about the same topic when my lecturer was lecturing us about parenting style and the process of socialization. I even made myself look like a fool for asking something that has been said by the lecturer previously due to this habit.
The topic is about the process of enculturation and socialization through parenting style. It is said that;
“The first and most important of these agents is parents; they help instils cultural mores and values in their children, reinforcing those mores and values when they are learned and practiced well and correcting mistakes in that learning.”
Furthermore;
“Parenting styles tend to be congruent with development goals dictated by culture; that is, cultural differences in specific values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviours necessary for survival are associated with developmental goals so that developing members of a society can carry on culture-relevant work related to survival.”
I agreed with what is being said and discussed. Somehow, I just feel like something is not right here. In our contemporary lifestyle, our socializing agent in our own home is not just our parents. We have another entity which is our servants. Regardless of their nationality, I would say that our future generation, the one that will become mature enough to be a man in twenty years time are actually being brought up by our personal servants.
Ten years back, it’s different. Our socializing agents, if not our parents then it would be our grandparents or our close and immediate relatives. We can see that, still, the process of socialization is carried by our own “people”. But now, due to unlimited non-related-to-family commitments and work responsibilities, our parents are forced to ignore the significant of their role as the socializing agent in the family. No wonder, most if not all, our current generations are very much into Indonesian culture, music’s and movies. I presumed that, as a result of the time we spend very much with our Indonesian servants, we are culturally inclined towards the Indonesia culture. I may be wrong when I generalize part of the population however; empirically this is what we are witnessing.
I did threw in my concerned yesterday to my lecturer however not many of us willing to say much about it. My concerned is that, without a proper analysis over this matter, what we would see in the future is that our generations are more tolerance towards other culture and therefore willing to compromise our own culture for the sake of blind equality.
Whether we like it or not, living in a plural society, we are prone to changes and we are systematically encouraged towards the process of cultural fusion. However, without a proper understanding about oneself, the likelihood of having a cultural clash would be possible and therefore will imbalance the system, resulting cultural fission. Thus, in order to better understand about oneself the task should be carried by the responsible person, again this will highlight the role of the parent as the social agent.
Without a proper attention given to our future generation on the subject of the process of socialization, I would say that, the potential for us to see a confused society in terms of defining their identity in the future would be inevitable.
