Identifying Child-Rearing Practices Among Lower-Class Families in Karachi

Abstract

Child rearing practices are an integral part of parenting and its presence and significance among families from lower a lower socioeconomic background is the subject of the study conducted for this paper. With parents of infants and younger children interviewed and spoken to in detail separately, differences not only in their opinions become more evident but along with personality traits the strategies and approaches adopted to raise children who will be the adults in any society in the future, preset themselves in interesting ways. Many parents exhibiting, more or less, similar economic indicators might vary in their stance on child rearing. A society, Pakistani in this case so full of tradition has age old practices, not good or bad, judgement not being the intention of this paper, being passed on from one generation to another. Parents think about how they were raised and what needs to be done with their own children perhaps subconsciously for none in the study conducted for this paper revealed that they consciously did so regularly or at intervals.The idea behind this research exercise is to track and identify these patterns and trends not for the sake of comparison with those of yore but to tap in to the experiences of the people which ultimately build their perceptions and consequently their personalities. Adding meanings to such a subliminal activity as child rearing practices with reference to the effect on or of the social dynamics of a society is the intention of this endeavor.