Rethinking the Role of Parents Through the Social Enterprise Movement
Thoughts Inspired by the Social Enterprise Movement
While engaging with books and case studies on the social enterprise movement, one may find opportunities to rethink parenting and the role of parents. The commitment to balancing social problem-solving with business can feel relevant even to the small unit of a family. Using the values demonstrated by the social enterprise movement as a guide, you might be able to re-examine how you interact with your children from a slightly different perspective.
Social Purpose and the Purpose of Parenting
Parenting involves many overlapping wishes and goals, such as wanting children to grow up healthy, independent, and happy. The way the social enterprise movement addresses its "social purpose" seems to offer hints for organizing one's own sense of purpose as a parent. By re-articulating what you truly value, you may find that the criteria for your daily choices and the way you speak to your children become a little clearer.
The Perspective of Balancing Profit and Mission
In the social enterprise movement, the question of how to balance "profit" with a "social mission" is constantly being asked. When applied to a family, this is similar to the challenge of balancing visible factors like "efficiency" and "results" with less visible ones like "a child's values and sense of happiness."
With homework, extracurricular activities, and career choices, while test scores and grades are easy-to-understand indicators in the short term, one also wants to emphasize the joy of learning itself and the ability to make one's own choices in the long term. Just as social enterprises try to have a decision-making axis to ensure they do not "focus only on sales but also protect their mission," it might be useful for families to pause and ask, "What is the purpose of doing this?"
For example,
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Improving test scores
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Ensuring the child continues to love learning
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Securing a certain amount of family time
If you view how to balance these as something akin to balancing profit and mission, the confusion within a parent might be organized in a different way. Instead of seeking a single correct answer, you can consider the process of trial and error—deciding which element to emphasize more at a given time—to be valuable in itself.
Agency and the Child's Autonomy
In the social enterprise movement, the distinction between the "provider of support" and the "recipient of support" is often questioned, and the importance of each individual being involved as an active participant is discussed. This overlaps with the theme of how to respect a child's autonomy. The challenge of creating a relationship where neither the parent decides everything nor the child is left entirely to their own devices emerges as a quiet issue.
The Idea of Not Separating Providers and Recipients
Many social enterprise movements emphasize the idea of "standing in the same place and changing the situation together" rather than the structure of "helping someone who is weak." If you bring this idea into the family, you can avoid viewing the parent as the "provider of support" and the child as the "recipient of support" in a fixed way.
Children are in the process of growing, and in reality, parental support is indispensable. However, treating them as objects to be supported in a one-way direction can make it difficult for the child's own agency and autonomy to develop. If you can share the feeling of being "members who are creating family life together," the quality of your dialogue may change.
Specifically,
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Involving children in housework and rule-making
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Explain family plans and how money is spent to the extent that they can understand.
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Seriously consider suggestions from children in a way that is appropriate for their age.
These are some ways of engaging with each other. This is not just about "making them help" or "making them independent," but rather closer to sharing the experience that "I, too, have a role to play as a member of the small community that is the family." It is interesting to think that by moving away from the one-way relationship where the parent is the "helper" and the child is the "helped," the way we see each other begins to change.
Family connections seen through the social enterprise movement
The social enterprise movement is often described as an effort to reconnect individuals with society. Looking at it, I feel there are hints that also apply to how we connect and communicate within the family. It brings to light the perspective of how to design not only our relationships with the outside world but also our daily family relationships.
Viewing the family as a small social organization
When we view the family as a small social organization, the values seen in the social enterprise movement emerge from a different angle. This is because many of the elements that organizations value—such as purpose, division of roles, decision-making processes, and methods of information sharing—also exist within the family.
For example, it can be thought that a family has something like a mission, such as "for the family to live with peace of mind, both physically and mentally" or "for each person to grow in their own way." On the other hand, the reality of managing within limited resources—time, money, and energy—is unavoidable. Just as social enterprises balance their mission with management resources, it can be said that families also choose every day "what to prioritize and what to give up."
At this time, it may be important not to be fixed on the view that only the parent is the manager and the child is the employee. The child is also a future bearer of this small organization, and at the same time, they have their own perspective and sense as a current member. Rather than unilaterally imposing rules about how to spend weekends, how to use the household budget, or the distance to keep from digital devices, by putting into words "why you want to do it that way" or "what kind of anxieties or expectations you have," something like an organizational culture will gradually take shape.
What the social enterprise movement seems to suggest is the value of the attitude itself of "continuing to search for a better way through dialogue and trial and error," rather than "someone having the correct answer." If we view the family as a small social organization, it can be said that there is room for both parents and children to engage as members who learn and change together, without needing to play a perfect role.
In conclusion
When we look at child-rearing and the role of parents using the social enterprise movement as a clue, perspectives such as "the balance between purpose and means," "agency," and "the family as a small organization" emerge. None of these provide a single correct answer, but they can serve as quiet hints for rethinking the small choices of daily life.
When asking what you can do as a parent, if you think about how to position yourself as "a member who continues to learn together" while also being "someone who supports others," the way you see your relationship with your child might change a little.
Thank you for reading. I would be happy if we could continue to take time to slowly confirm how we want to be as individuals, before we are "as parents."