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<title> Manchester United vs. Jesus </title>
In this essay I will discuss how children and youngsters are affected by role models and ideals and the importance that parents take their responsibility in the process of bringing up their children. In this process there are of course some factors which are of major importance to the child. One such factor is the importance of having someone to look up to, someone to learn from, to trust and believe in. The process of learning is old, but role models and ideals will forever be new. 

As most other mammals, humans have an impulse to take care of their children from the day they are born. It is essential to all infant mammals to be taken care of, and to be brought up by someone who knows the difficulties of life. All mammals, including us, must thus learn how to manage - how to survive, how to deal with relations and conflicts. This fact has not changed considerably over thousands of years, and will presumably not change very much in the future, either. Though, what always will be changing is the milieu we live in and the ideals and role models we have. 

In prehistoric times, for example, children were primarily brought up in order to learn how to survive. The most important things for them were to learn how to get food and protect themselves from enemies. Thus were their role models probably the persons who were the most successful in these tasks, most likely the leaders of the tribes. Further on in history, religion has been a very important part in forming ideals. My mother, for example, was brought up in a deeply Christian home in Sweden, and the head of the family, my grandfather, was a preacher. One could say that Jesus was the main role model to everyone in that family. They often read aloud from the Bible and always ended every day with my grandfather giving a little sermon. This affected my mother, and even though she is not a Christian today, but she still believes in Christian ideals. 

When I was brought up, in the 1980s and 90s in Sweden, I had several different role models, but non of them were Jesus or "the head of the tribe", but rather different combinations of the two. My first role model was my mother. To me she was the ultimate being, "the head of the tribe" (=the family) and like Jesus - "almighty". She gave me food, security, and love. Everything she did, I did it. If she cried, I cried, even though I did not know why. Then I grew too old to hang around my mother, and started to adore my elder brother, and suddenly everything he did was what I felt was the right thing for me to do. Since then I have changed my ideals plenty of times, and still do. Though, my intention is not to tell you about all the hockey teams, movie stars and heavy-metal bands I have worshipped, but rather to point out, that everyone is more or less a product of the role models he has. Additionally, it is a well-known fact that children do not do as their parents tell them to, but rather as their parents themselves do. It is the same when it comes to youngsters and their role models, and these can thus be seen as "extra parents".

The way I see it, role models and ideals are essential, and especially so when it comes to youngsters. And as long as the role models function as extra parents rather than substitutes to parents, I do not see any big trouble with them. This is were parental responsibility comes in. It is the parents' responsibility to make sure their children do not need ideals that will make them become bad human beings, since in today's society Jesus has many competitors for the awe of the youngsters. Manchester United to name one.
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