Amanda Holt
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9781847420282
- eISBN:
- 9781447301493
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781847420282.003.0012
- Subject:
- Social Work, Crime and Justice
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 ...
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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
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.
Tracey Jensen
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781447325055
- eISBN:
- 9781447325109
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447325055.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Marriage and the Family
Bad parenting is so often blamed for Britain's broken society, manifesting in sites as diverse as the government reaction to the riots of 2011, popular entertainment like Supernanny and the ...
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Bad parenting is so often blamed for Britain's broken society, manifesting in sites as diverse as the government reaction to the riots of 2011, popular entertainment like Supernanny and the discussion boards of Mumsnet. This book examines how these pathologising ideas of failing, chaotic and dysfunctional families are manufactured across media, policy and public debate and how parent-blame creates a powerful consensus that Britain is in the grip of a parenting crisis. The book tracks how crisis talk around parenting has been used to police and discipline families who are considered to be morally deficient and socially irresponsible. Most damagingly, it has been used to justify increasingly punitive state policies towards families in the name of making bad parents more responsible. Is the real crisis in our perceptions rather than reality? This is essential reading for anyone engaged in policy and popular debate around parenting.Less
Bad parenting is so often blamed for Britain's broken society, manifesting in sites as diverse as the government reaction to the riots of 2011, popular entertainment like Supernanny and the discussion boards of Mumsnet. This book examines how these pathologising ideas of failing, chaotic and dysfunctional families are manufactured across media, policy and public debate and how parent-blame creates a powerful consensus that Britain is in the grip of a parenting crisis. The book tracks how crisis talk around parenting has been used to police and discipline families who are considered to be morally deficient and socially irresponsible. Most damagingly, it has been used to justify increasingly punitive state policies towards families in the name of making bad parents more responsible. Is the real crisis in our perceptions rather than reality? This is essential reading for anyone engaged in policy and popular debate around parenting.
Tracey Jensen
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781447325055
- eISBN:
- 9781447325109
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447325055.003.0004
- Subject:
- Sociology, Marriage and the Family
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 ...
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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
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.
Tracey Jensen
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781447325055
- eISBN:
- 9781447325109
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447325055.003.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Marriage and the Family
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 ...
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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
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.
Val Gillies, Rosalind Edwards, and Nicola Horsley
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781447324096
- eISBN:
- 9781447324119
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447324096.001.0001
- Subject:
- Social Work, Children and Families
So often, the ills of society are blamed on negligent parenting, leading to the development of social service policies built around the concept of early intervention. Interrogating this concept, this ...
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So often, the ills of society are blamed on negligent parenting, leading to the development of social service policies built around the concept of early intervention. Interrogating this concept, this book explores the history of our understanding of children, family, and parenting, and its implications for society. With a particular focus on the intersection of brain science and social policy, the authors challenge our long-held consensus on early intervention. Accessibly written and highly topical, this book is a comprehensive and critical assay of our contemporary belief that so-called bad parents raise substandard future citizens unfit for the new capitalism.Less
So often, the ills of society are blamed on negligent parenting, leading to the development of social service policies built around the concept of early intervention. Interrogating this concept, this book explores the history of our understanding of children, family, and parenting, and its implications for society. With a particular focus on the intersection of brain science and social policy, the authors challenge our long-held consensus on early intervention. Accessibly written and highly topical, this book is a comprehensive and critical assay of our contemporary belief that so-called bad parents raise substandard future citizens unfit for the new capitalism.
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846316999
- eISBN:
- 9781846317064
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846317064.018
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
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 ...
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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
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.
