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Room for resistance? Parenting Orders, disciplinary power and the production of ‘the bad parent’

Amanda Holt

in ASBO nation: The criminalisation of nuisance

Since their inception in the Crime and Disorder Act of 1998, Parenting Orders have provided New Labour with another tool with which to fight its battle against crime and anti-social behaviour. This ... More

Since their inception in the Crime and Disorder Act of 1998, Parenting Orders have provided New Labour with another tool with which to fight its battle against crime and anti-social behaviour. This chapter examines the practice of Parenting Orders through the lens of Michel Foucault's notion of ‘disciplinary power’. Such an approach provides an analytical framework to understand why, despite the neutral term ‘parent’, Parenting Orders tend to be issued to mothers, lone parents, and those living in the most deprived areas in the United Kingdom. This chapter discusses how the mobilisation of the ‘psy-complex’ in the twentieth century has enabled parents to be classified on the basis of white, especially middleclass, ‘norms’ of parenting and how such processes of classification have informed the practices of a number of agencies. It also considers disciplinary power and governmentality, the objectification of ‘bad parents’, appropriation of psychology for policy based on the case of risk factor models, and whether Parenting Orders represent regulation or resistance.Less

Parenting – with feeling

Tracey Jensen

in Parenting the Crisis: The Cultural Politics of Parent-Blame

This chapter examines the emotional politics of parenting culture, and more specifically, the importance of the idea of ‘pure relationships’ in the manufacture of a parenting crisis. It considers how ... More

This chapter examines the emotional politics of parenting culture, and more specifically, the importance of the idea of ‘pure relationships’ in the manufacture of a parenting crisis. It considers how parent-blame forms a political battleground conducted through the vocabulary of feelings — bad parents designated as such by professionals, through their failure to provide adequate emotional care, to regulate their own feelings or to generate emotional resilience and skills in their children. The chapter highlights the psychological vocabularies that have manifested as the central pillar of neoliberal parenting moralism, and at the expense of sociological vocabularies of class, inequality and structures of disadvantage. It also discusses the collusion between such individualising and psychologising languages and the reproduction of fantasy ‘tough love’ parents, who are able to exert the correct (and elusive) combination of attentive nurture and confident discipline.Less

Introduction

Tracey Jensen

in Parenting the Crisis: The Cultural Politics of Parent-Blame

This book examines the cultural politics of parent-blame in Britain, or more precisely, mother-blame, arguing that the manufacture and circulation of ‘bad parents’ is part of a social, cultural and ... More

This book examines the cultural politics of parent-blame in Britain, or more precisely, mother-blame, arguing that the manufacture and circulation of ‘bad parents’ is part of a social, cultural and political rubric that is at once gendered and gendering. It begins with the premise that parent-blame manifests, in part, through the sacralisation and idealisation of some mothers. It also discusses the emergence of the figure of the ‘bad parent’ as a ‘bearer of crisis’ and shows how this figure came to populate public debate, popular culture, policy documents and political speech, everyday conversation, social media and media culture at the turn of the twenty-first century. Finally, it locates the construction of ‘parenting crisis’ within a broader context of neoliberalism. The book contends that the neoliberalisation of parenting disguises and obscures the structural processes and excesses that are widening social inequality and deepening the poverty of those marginalised at the bottom.Less

The Devil's Children

in The Liverpool Underworld: Crime in the City, 1750-1900

This chapter examines the history of juvenile delinquency in Liverpool during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It identifies some of the causes of juvenile crime. These include lack of ... More

This chapter examines the history of juvenile delinquency in Liverpool during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It identifies some of the causes of juvenile crime. These include lack of employment, influence of older criminals in lodging–houses, lack of education, temptation of the treasure trove of goods lying about the dock, bad parenting, and criminal genes. This chapter also suggests that children were adversely affected by perverse examples from literature and theatre. It also considers the alleged presence of ‘The Liverpool College for the Education of Thieves’ located at the north end of Ben Jonson Street, off Scotland Road.Less