parenting

In my opinion, to be a parent is to guide a child through the world, in the best way you possibly can. You make sure they survive childhood- by feeding them, sheltering them, providing them an education- so that they can be prepared for adulthood. Because the whole point of having children is to pass along your genes. You want them to hopefully provide you grandchildren, and then they will repeat this process with their own children. More important then this is to hopefully make sure we're creating honest, responsible, nurturing individuals- who care about others, who care about our planet, etc. I think if we can somehow have children who turn out better than we did, without forcing our beliefs down their throats (but rather leading by example), then we've done good as parents.

I agree with you, parents do those things for their children.

Parenting is the raising of a child in a loving, caring and stable environment. It is providing for a child/children in both a financial/material and emotional/mental sense. It is raising the child into adulthood, to be a stable, well adjusted, secure adult that is happy wth their life. It is playing and teaching, feeding and clothing, through good times, through bed (sounds like a marriage lol), caring, respect... It is everything. It is shaping the future.