Perspectives on Parenting Responsibility: Contextualizing Values and Practices
| Date | 01 March 2008 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6478.2008.00416.x |
| Author | Val Gillies |
| Published date | 01 March 2008 |
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY
VOLUME 35, NUMBER 1, MARCH 2008
ISSN: 0263-323X, pp. 95±112
Perspectives on Parenting Responsibility: Contextualizing
Values and Practices
Val Gillies*
This paper critically explores the classed assumptions underpinning
contemporary family policy, situating them within the context of broader
political and theoretical debates about parenting responsibility.
Analysis of policy documents over the past few years suggests that the
family is being prioritized as a mechanism for tackling wider social ills
such as crime and poverty. Families are portrayed as the `building
blocks for safe and sustainable communities', with good parents
fostering and transmitting crucial values to their children which protect
and reproduce the common good. Although the current government has
pledged to support all parents, policy initiatives point to a class-specific
focus on disadvantaged or `socially excluded' families. Poor parents are
viewed as reproducing a cycle of deprivation and anti-social behaviour
and are therefore targeted for behaviour modification. Drawing on
research from a qualitative study of parenting resources, this paper will
challenge the notion that social inclusion can be promoted at the level of
the family, and will argue instead that parenting practices and values
are grounded in social and economic realities.
INTRODUCTION
Parents have always been held responsible for the behaviour and develop-
ment of their children but recent years have seen a cultural shift in the way
child rearing is conceptualized and targeted by policy makers. In the past,
intimate family relationships tended to be viewed as personal, private, and
outside the remit of state intervention. This boundary is now regularly
challenged in an explicit and determined effort to mould and regulate
95
ß2008 The Author. Editorial organization ß2008 Cardiff University Law School. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd,
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
*Families & Social Capital Group, London South Bank University, 102
Borough Road, London SE1 0AA, England
gilliev@lsbu.ac.uk
This paper draws on material from my book, V. Gillies, Marginalized Mothers: Exploring
Working Class Experiences of Parenting (2007).
individual subjectivity and citizenship at the level of the family. Parenting is
no longer accepted as merely an interpersonal bond characterized by love
and care. Instead it has been reframed as a job requiring particular skills and
expertise which must be taught by formally qualified professionals. In
particular, working class or socially excluded mothering practices are held
up as the antithesis of good parenting, largely through their association with
poor outcomes for children. In this paper I will critically examine the current
preoccupation with parenting before turning to my own qualitative research
to show how this policy approach is grounded in a failure to understand the
different challenges facing disadvantaged families.
THE CYCLE OF DEPRIVATION
Family life has long been a political concern. Fear of the social consequences
of an emerging urban mass in the nineteenth century established a durable
link between the well-being and rearing of children and the welfare of the
whole society. However, while efforts by the state to shape parenting have an
extensive history they have, recently, scaled new heights. In the United
Kingdom, parenting has been pushed to the centre of the policy stage, in line
with a neo-liberal emphasis on family, community, and personal respon-
sibility.
1
More specifically the arrival of the New Labour government in
1997 marked a policy step-change in relation to family, with an increasingly
interventionist agenda pursued in the name of promoting order and social
justice. Political anxiety has largely centred on a section of society described
by the government as the `deeply excluded' who are viewed as transmitting
their disadvantage through an intergenerational `cycle of deprivation'.
2
Over
the last decade or so policies have been orientated towards reforming the
lifestyle and conduct of the poorest and most vulnerable in society in order to
`save' the next generation. Tony Blair, the prime minister in 2006, summed
up this approach in a speech to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation:
Iamsaying that where it is clear, as it very often is, at a young age, that
children are at risk of being brought up in a dysfunctional home where there
are multiple problems, say of drug abuse or offending, then instead of waiting
until the child goes off the rails, we should act early enough, with the right
help, support and disciplined framework for the family, to prevent it. This is
not stigmatising the child or the family. It may be the only way to save them
and the wider community from the consequences of inaction. About 2.5 per
cent of every generation seem to be stuck in a lifetime of disadvantage and
amongst them are the excluded of the excluded, the deeply excluded. Their
poverty is, not just about poverty of income but poverty of aspiration, of
96
1V.Gillies, `Meeting Parents Needs? Discourses of ``Support'' and ``Inclusion'' in
Family Policy' (2005) 25 Critical Social Policy 70.
2 Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Breaking the Cycle: Taking Stock of Progress
and Priorities for the Future (2004).
ß2008 The Author. Editorial organization ß2008 Cardiff University Law School
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