The Problem of ‘Attachment’: The ‘Detached’ Parent

Abstract

This essay …

• Explores how, and why, the detachment (and attachment) of parents and children has become a social problem.

• Looks at the claimsmaking undertaken by a particular group of advocates (attachment parents) to explore how this has been formulated as a problem in political, medical, and lay terms.

• Draws on earlier chapters, to look at the intersections between ‘attachment’ and ‘intensive’ parenting, looking at the ways in which various forms of care are naturalized (and gendered).

• Looks at how parenting styles have become increasingly ‘tribalized’, with negative social implications.