Childrearing, Class and the New Politics of Parenting

Abstract

Recent years have seen Governments prioritise family as a mechanism for tackling social ills. More particularly, in the UK, bad parenting has been identified as a prominent causal factor in poverty and social disorder, with contemporary policy solutions focusing on regulating and controlling childrearing practices. Analysis of political rhetoric and policy initiatives reveals a class specific focus on disadvantaged or ‘socially excluded’ families as failing their children and society as a whole. Poor parents are viewed as reproducing a cycle of deprivation and anti-social behaviour and are therefore targeted to receive state intervention. This paper presents a critical analysis of the new politics of parenting to challenge the notion that equity can be promoted at the level of the family. Drawing on qualitative research with marginalised mothers and fathers, it shows how parenting practices and values are grounded in social and economic realities and highlights the extent to which prevailing childrearing prescriptions are detached from the lives and values of those they are directed at.