PARENTHOOD

Ron Howard's bittersweet comedy genre movie "Parenthood", lays out an entire catalogue of psychological stresses that involves family life in America, and asks if being a parent is all worth the while. It definitely have to be! All children are not  the same and not all parents adapt the same feature of parenting style. It's all depends on the respective individuals personality and attitude. The movie "Parenthood" revolves around five types of parents, which involves Gil Buckman (Steve Martin), the lead character, who apparently portrays an authoritative parenting style who deals with his free-will children as a "non-strict" parent. Helen, a divorcee with two teen children, adapts an indulgent way of parenting, tries to deal with her children who seems to have their own way of teenage problems. Her daughter Julie,who is only 16 years old, sleeps with her drag-racer boyfriend under the family roof and her 13 years old son Gary, a skateboard fanatic who carries around pornographic videotapes in a crumpled paper bag. Having this problems, Helen tries to be supportive but at the same time doesnt have a base control towards her children.

Gil's other sister, Susan, is a school teacher with an obnoxious husband, Nathan (Rick Moranis), who is pretty much obsessed with raising his 3 year old daughter to perfection by using flash cards showing chemical symbols. His way of parenting code portrays more or less like an authoritarian parenting style. A further complication for the Buckman clan is the unexpected arrival of a family member, Gil's younger brother, Larry (Tom Hulce), with his illegitimate son, Cool. Larry as a compulsive gambler, forgets about his son Cool, and dumps his son under his parents supervision. His character of not being responsible in terms of lack of attention and care-taking portrays him as a uninvolved type of parent.

This movie had shown us different types of parenting styles in various family roof, and not all seems to portray it clearly but the basic aspects of the styles were present in the movie. Some manage to cope well with it and others learned a lesson through their activities. This movie has also shown recognition in no matter how grown-up and self aware we may be, we inevitably bring the emotional wound of childhood into the family dynamic. Even being the most sensitive parent, the film reminds us that limit will always be there. No matter how hard you try, you can't live your children's lives for them.

Women have choices, and men have responsibilities. ~ Gil Buckman