Parenting and Child Development: A Comparison of Yoruba Parenting and Pauline Concept of Child Rearing in Ephesians 6:4

The importance of children in any society cannot be overemphasized. This is why they arehighly desired and valued in every home and culture particularly among the Jews and theYoruba of south west Nigeria. Their presence signals hope and future for the family, churchand the society at large. Yoruba and Pauline concepts of parenting and child developmentclearly pointed out that there are a lot of similarities between the two worlds. There has beena remarkable paradigm shift from what parenting used to be and what it is now. Both Yorubaand Pauline ideas are at variance with the attitude of many parents in the society today.Children, in most cases, are seen as weak, ignorant, foolish and thereby deserve little or norecognition. This attitude of neglect actually calls for concern. The paper examines the conceptof parenting as practiced by the Yoruba people of western Nigeria. Similarly, it also surveys thePauline concept of child rearing as encapsulated in Ephesians 6:4. As a contextual study, thepaper correlates the biblical perspective with the contemporary realities in the Yoruba landand Africa at large. The paper also highlights the elements of contextual connectivity betweenthe parenting in Paul’s world and the African view vis-à-vis the Nigerian situation. Consequently,Inferences are drawn from the Biblical and the Yoruba principles of child rearing for thepurpose of bringing up total children that will become leaders tomorrow.