The Beginning of Life: A Compelling Case for Purposeful Parenting in a Changing World

“When you pay attention to the beginning of a story, you can change the whole story.”
— Raffi Cavoukian, singer and founder, Canada’s Centre for Child Honouring

Introduction: Parenting in a Time That Demands More

Parenting today demands more than just love, it requires purposeful parenting a conscious, consistent commitment to being present, informed, and nurturing in ways that honor each child’s unique humanity.

The 2016 documentary The Beginning of Life, directed by Estela Renner and supported by UNICEF and the Bernard Van Leer Foundation, is a profound reminder that how we raise children today shapes the societies we will live in tomorrow. Set across diverse cultures and families in countries like Brazil, Canada, China, Kenya, and India, the film offers both science and soul: neuroscience meets storytelling, evidence meets emotion.

The documentary features Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman, supermodel and activist Gisele Bündchen, and UNICEF’s Chief of Early Childhood Development, Dr. Pia Rebello Britto. Their testimonies are interwoven with rich footage of parents and children from various social, cultural, and economic backgrounds.

The 90-minute documentary serves as both a wake-up call and a mirror, reflecting what children truly need to thrive. And its message is clear: children don’t just need to be cared for, they need to be understood, valued, and raised with purpose.

Purposeful Parenting: What the Film Teaches Us

1. The Early Years Are Not Just Important, There are the Very Foundation

The Beginning of Life opens with a bold statement grounded in neuroscience: the first years of life are a period of rapid brain development, laying down the architecture for emotional intelligence, cognitive ability, social skills, and long-term well-being.

Nobel Laureate James Heckman explains that investing in early childhood yields the highest return, economically and socially more than any other period in human development. The film goes beyond abstract numbers and shows us real families navigating this sacred time of life with tenderness and trial.

Reflection for parents: Are we prioritizing early connection, emotional attunement, and positive stimulation over mere performance and compliance?

2. Children Need Relationships, Not Just Resources

Modern parenting often focuses on what we can provide materially, but the documentary emphasizes that a child’s development is profoundly shaped by the quality of their human relationships. A baby’s brain literally grows through interactions, eye contact, touch, laughter, voice, presence.

Estela Renner says it beautifully:

“It’s not just about changing diapers and feeding—it’s about how you hold the baby, how you look at them, how you talk to them. That’s where connection lives.”

Purposeful parenting means prioritizing presence over perfection. No gadget or app can replace the warmth of a responsive parent or caregiver.

3. Parenting Is Political, Cultural, and Spiritual

The documentary takes us from affluent cities to rural villages, showing how poverty, war, work conditions, and gender roles affect how children are raised. The message? Parenting is not just personal—it is a public concern. Societies must build ecosystems that support parents: through parental leave, early childhood education, health systems, and community-based care.

In Kenya, we see mothers navigating parenting with little support. In India, fathers are learning to engage emotionally for the first time. In Brazil, a mother speaks of the fear and beauty of raising a child in a favela.

Reflection for policy-makers and advocates: How do we create enabling environments for parents to thrive, not just survive?

Reflection for parents: Are we raising children to challenge or conform to unjust systems? Are we passing on trauma, or healing it?

4. Fathers Matter—Deeply

Too often, parenting narratives focus solely on mothers. The Beginning of Life shifts this dynamic by showing emotionally available fathers who are co-nurturers, not just providers. The bond between a father and child is presented as equally important, and the presence of men in caregiving roles becomes a key part of the call for gender equality.

Purposeful parenting includes raising sons who see caregiving as strength, and daughters who see fatherly love as normal.

5. Children Are People, Not Project

This strikes at the heart of purposeful parenting. Children are not canvases for our unfulfilled dreams. They are not to be shaped into versions of ourselves but to be supported into becoming who they already are.

The film calls us to resist over-scheduling, performance-based parenting, and social comparison. Instead, we are urged to listen, nurture curiosity, and foster creativity.

Reflection: Are we parenting to be seen by society, or to truly see our child?

6. Emotional Safety Is a Human Right

Throughout the documentary, we are reminded that love is not just a feeling, it is action, safety, and consistency. Neglect, violence, and emotional abandonment have deep and lasting consequences on a child’s development. Children flourish where there is warmth, structure, and responsiveness.

Purposeful parenting means creating homes where children feel emotionally safe to make mistakes, ask questions, and express emotions.

From the Mind of the Preacher: Reflecting Mr. Taiwo Akinlami’s Teachings on Purposeful Parenting

If a baby does not change you, nothing will. Babies are teachers, whose mandates in our life is to teach us to love unconditional, peace undisruptable, curiosity at its peak, joy unspeakable, continuity in its purest meaning, time consciousness as a constant reality.

Children do not only grow too fast, but they are also fast teachers and it does not matter if you are a slow learner. You will learn now, catch up later or simply get lost and lick your wounds in the woods.

By seeming impatient, they teach you patient, they do not only teach you to care, but they also teach you how to care in detail. They teach you, unconditional love. How do you love a person, who cannot say thank you yet? Love to children means appreciation and attention. They teach you speed. They teach you commitment. They teach you unity as couples

Every man is tested according to the praises accorded him. Children are the catalyst of this verse of scripture.

Children simply humble you, bringing you to a place of surrender to their lordship. You will have to learn their ways even as they learn yours. The challenge is that they learn yours unconsciously and leisurely but you learn their ways against your own odds of being fully formed.

It is tougher for someone like me, who received the gift of this awesome boy at the age of 51, 15 years into our marriage.

Wow, no matter how prepared you think you are the subjective reality of the personality of your child will militate against the best of your preparation. You will either learn the wisdom of retooling and adapting to the reality of the child or you lose out too early. You either subject the objective reality of what you have learnt to the subjective reality of the child in your hand or priding yourself on the throne of your objective reality becomes your Waterloo or nightmare.

There is no room for chance, knowledge, skill and fortitude must be your weapon of LOVE and CARE, knowing that there is no time to gaze when it comes to child development. Promptness is the name of the game.

In our society, assumptions often replace understanding. We discipline without studying discipline. We protect children without truly understanding what Child Safeguarding and Protection entails. Let us begin again, from a place of meaning.

Let’s consider the acronym C-H-I-L-D-R-E-N as a lens to reframe our thinking:

• C: Care: The foundation of all development.
• H: Heritage: Abraham Lincoln says: ‘A child is a person who is going to carry on what you have started. He is going to sit where you’re sitting, and when you’re gone; attend to those things, which are important. You may adopt all the policies you please, but how they are carried out depends on him. He will assume control of your Cities, States, and Nation. He is going to move in and take over your churches, schools, universities and corporations. The fate of humanity is in his hands.’
• I: Individuality: The Holy Writ submits that ‘those who compare themselves to themselves are not wise.’
• L: Leadership: Children are not leaders of tomorrow. They are leaders of today. Leadership simply means ability to take responsibilities for oneself and others.
• D: Delightful: Pablo Casals says, ‘Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again? And what do we teach our children? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel? You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children.’ Pablo Casals
• R: Respect: children must be treated with respect that their individuality deserves. When we do not treat them with respect, three things will happen: first, tey will not respect us; second, they will not respect themselves; and third, they will not demand respect from others.
• E: Engage: we must engage children for the purpose of enlightenment and empowerment.
• N: Now: Gabriella Mistrel, Nobel Prize winning poet from Chile submitted in her classical poem, THE CHILD’S NAME IS TODAY as We are guilty of many errors and faults/But our worst crime is abandoning the children/Neglecting the fountain of life/Many of the things we do can wait/The child cannot/Right now is the time his bones are being formed/His blood is being made and his sense are being developed/To him we cannot answer, ‘Tomorrow’/His name is TODAY.’

Conclusion

Parenting is not an automatic act of biology. It is a sacred responsibility that calls us to study, grow, reflect, and lead with intention and purpose. The documentary: The Beginning of Life, does not offer all the answers, but it offers a compass: pointing us toward presence, connection, equity, and love.

Let us stop asking children to adapt to broken systems. Let us fix the systems and nurture our precious children. Let us stop measuring success by test scores and start measuring it by joy, empathy, and safety.

Because the beginning of life is where the whole story begins. And if we pay attention there, we might just change the ending for good.