Good Parenting In A Thousand Splendid Suns Khaled Hosseini

What is an ideal parent ? In A Thousand Splendid Suns Khaled Hosseini strenuously suggests a good parent is someone who shows affection to their child, shows attentiveness in their child’s life, encourages them to do marvelous things, and have a positive influential affect on their life. Throughout this book it’s exemplifies good parenting, and Laila’s father Babi is an example of an authoritarian parent. In the book , he spends all of his free time with Laila and always tells her how much he loves her even when her mother Fariba is secluding herself from Laila’s life this is clear when he says, “Sometimes , when your mother’s having one of her really dark days, I feel like you're all I have, Laila.” Good parenting also comes with the ability of being able to provide abundant amounts of attention towards the child and show interest in their life.

In the book , when Fariba and Laila’s relationships begins to disintegrate, Babi decides to spend more time with Laila to fill the void of Laila feeling like Fariba doesn’t care for her as much as she cared for her brother Ahmad and Noor.

Babi took Laila and Tariq to the two Buddha statues, there he spends his time above the Bamiyan Valley with Laila telling her his hopes and dreams of going to America and how their life has changed over the course of time , this becomes clear when Babi talks about moving to America then Hosseini writes “ When Babi was done speaking he grew quiet. They both knew Mammy wasn’t going anywhere , leaving Afghanistan while they were alive was unthinkable now that they were shaheed , packing up and running would be a betrayal.” Babi was a high school in Kabul before he was fired by the communist , after he was fired he became passionate about encouraging Laila that education was the key to

success. Throughout the novel, starting from when Laila was a young child Babi tried to instill education into her and encouraged her that education was important and there was more to life than marriage this is clear when he says , “ Marriage can wait , education cannot.You’re a very, very bright girl. Truly, you are. You can be anything you want, Laila. I know this about you. And I also know that when this war is over, Afghanistan is going to need you as much as its men, maybe even more.” Hosseini exemplifies an example of a ideal parent through the character Babi , if Babi wasn’t as loving and encouraging as he was towards Laila she would’ve never knew how to be independent , she never would have thought of pursuing an education instead of becoming a simple housewife, or not understand how to stand up for her own equal rights.