Abstract
Our analysis of parenting culture leads us to reject the claim that expert- driven parent training improves life for parents. This does not mean, however, that ‘parenting’ should be viewed as a task that should simply be left to parents in nucleated families. ‘Parents do need support’, argues Furedi, and this includes access to childcare and child-friendly communities — but ‘[m]ost important of all, they need to know that the decisions they make about the future of their children will be supported and not undermined by the rest of society’ (Furedi, 2008a, p. 171). We suggest that a more progressive parenting culture than the one we have presently would make two matters central. The first is active support for parental authority and judgement. The second is community ‘friendliness’ towards children, acknowledging general adult responsibility in everyday life for the care and socialization of children.
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Further reading
Furedi, F. (2013b) Moral Crusades in an Age of Mistrust: The Jimmy Savile scandal (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan).
Through his analysis of a recent British historical child abuse scandal, Furedi explains how the concept of ‘moral panic’ does not encapsulate the workings of ‘paedophile panics’ in contemporary Britain, where the impetus arises not from the public but from the political elite. The confusion over fundamental moral values, Furedi argues, gives rise to ‘moral crusades’, which promote ‘an ideology of evil’ in an attempt to clarify values and to change public behaviour. Furedi’s analysis draws out the destructive consequences of such crusades, both for the individuals embroiled in them and wider society.
Piper, H. and Stronach, I. (2008) Don’t Touch! The educational story of a panic (London and New York: Routledge).
In this book, Piper and Stronach situate the findings of their research into ‘no-touch’ policies in daycare and early years settings within a powerful narrative about the way in which risk discourse has made it problematic for professionals to interact spontaneously — and often in ways that they believe to be right — with the young children in their care.
Jenkins, P. (1998) Moral Panic: Changing concepts of the child molester in modern America (New Haven and London: Yale University Press).
This is a solid and revealing account of the historical development of ‘paedophile panics’ and their roots in wider cultural anxieties about threats to the family, moving towards a growing sensibility about the problem of abuse within the family. Jenkins usefully explores the ways in which radical feminist agendas came to intersect with campaigns to preserve traditional morality.
Best, J. (1993a) Threatened Children: Rhetoric and concern about child-victims (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press).
This is a model study of the social construction of a social problem. Best’s study of the rhetorical tools used by campaigners in making the case for why policymakers should respond more vigorously to the problem of children being abducted and abused reveals how the use of claims and statistics fuels an inflated sense of the problem.
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© 2014 Ellie Lee, Jennie Bristow, Charlotte Faircloth and Jan Macvarish
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Bristow, J. (2014). Who Cares for Children? The Problem of Intergenerational Contact. In: Parenting Culture Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137304612_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137304612_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-30463-6
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