How would you define bad parenting? Have you had one of those moments with your child where you have questioned you right to be a parent? I know I have. How did I deal with it? Well, instead of answering this question I would rather define the true definition of a bad parent.

It's not because you denied your child something they wanted just because they wanted it. That's all part of the disciplinary process. I would consider bad parenting would be more like letting your child have everything it wants without teaching him/her how to get it or earn it. But the real definition of bad parenting can be defined in the following examples:

Real Bad Parenting – Extreme Cases

It’s bad parenting to spend all your food money, and leave the kids to scrounge wherever they can for supper.

It’s bad parenting to put beer in the baby’s bottle so she’ll stay quiet during your party.

Meth Addiction

Some children’s parents are addicted to methamphetamines. 1.5 million Americans are addicted to it, and many of them cook it in makeshift labs in their homes. Meth is highly addictive and may cause violent behavior. People who are addicted to methamphetamines lose their inhibitions and their ability to make judgments. People may have sex in front of young children and women sometimes engage in sex and offer their children for sex in return for the drug.

The ingredients used to make methamphetamines are toxic, and children often live in homes that are being used as labs. They are exposed to the toxic substances and to the drug.

These people did not decide to be bad parents. They did not set out to exploit or abuse their children, but they do it anyway. Methamphetamines are taking a terrible toll in our country, and children are the victims.

Some of these kids wind up in foster care; in fact, the number of kids in foster care in Oregon has doubled in the last couple of years due to the methamphetamine epidemic there. The foster care system cannot absorb them all, and often the older children are left to fend for themselves because there simply isn’t anywhere for them to go.

The ultimate “bad parenting” decision is to abuse your body or your child in any way. The hard truth, as briefly examined, is often times horrifying and painful to even read about. We need to understand however, how this affects the children in our society so that we can begin to help the healing process begin. When people remain ignorant to these kinds of issues, it is not possible for communities to stand together and make a change for the better.

Finally, is the question to be asked that adults be put through an education process right at the beginning; right when they decide they want to have a baby. Could we avoid a large proportion of bad parenting in this way? Could adults have to obtain some sort of a licence to have a baby? It's an argument that would cause plenty of debate and it's not for me to decide and more importantly, it opens up a number of grey areas. That's why we elect politicians into office. But the next time you are having guilty thoughts about denying your child something trivial, don't. You are just being a parent. There are processes put in place in our society to deal with the "real" bad parenting.