Journal of Emerging Trends in Economics and Management Sciences: Home

Article Title:
Male-child Syndrome and the Agony of Entrepreneurial Development of the Girl-child in Contemporary Parenting in Southeast, Nigeria
by Ehirim N.C. and Osuji E.E

Abstract:
Male-child is a pride of contemporary Nigerian homes but balancing the parental responsibilities in girl dominated homes is becoming a serious challenge. Thus, emerging patriarchal fraud to balance the sex of offspring in contemporary Nigeria with concomitant exclusion of girl-child entrepreneurial potential is creeping into contemporary parenting. Parenting supports and promotes the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual balance of a child but most girl-child suffer neglect, taken unserious or most time abandoned with their heavy entrepreneurial potentials. Good parenting, which focuses on enforcing independence in the child, negates the entrepreneurial potentials of girl child at different ages and stage of development, thus making them totally dependent. Parenting styles are very vital because numerous reports signify that it forecast how children perform in the field of psychosocial development, business development, academic performance, social competence and problem behavior. Parents adopt any of these parenting styles such as (authoritarian permissive, uninvolved, and authoritative parenting) to raise their wards and/or children. In Nigeria today, the predominance of a male child over a female child had continued to trigger urgent concerns. It is quite obvious that once a woman has not delivered a male child (baby boy), she is yet to be fully accepted in the husband?s family and this is the plight, many women who are yet to have male children for their husbands go through as they are seen to be of no value to their families. Most men had argued that the preference of a male child is for the family name to be sustained, inherit property and the need to conform to the culture and traditional setting. Girl child entrepreneurial education has been a bane of contention owing to the male dominated (patriarchal) world whereby a boy child enjoys all the privileges of going to school to learn and acquire skills more the child girl who is often relegated to domestic chores and early marriages. Entrepreneurial education of the girl child should be fully enforced in Nigeria to achieve it desired goals and intrinsic objectives.

Keywords: Parenting, Male-child, Syndrome, Girl-child, Entrepreneurship, Education

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