Week 4: History of Parental Advice and Modern Parenting Styles Flashcards
28 jan - 30 jan
Intro: Zygmunt Bauman: Liquid Modernity
{Solid Modernity} Vs {Liquid Modernity
key points of the lecture
- fluidity
- individualization
- privatization
Zygmunt Bauman:
[In the past] Authorities/legislators: offer not just opinions but
legitimated commands that ought to be followed.
[Now] Contemporary experts: more likely to be regarded as an
individual (informed) opinion with less authority to dictate a right or
correct way to parent.
Part 1. Rutherford (2011) Take it with a grain of salt
As prominent parenting figures have been reduced from “authorities” to
“experts,” their advice “is more likely to be regarded as an individual (informed) opinion with less authority to dictate a light or correct way to
parent”
In the beginning of the 20th century,
“parents relied heavily on professional advice for scientific knowledge about children and the best childrearing practices. (…) By the 1970s, there was a subtle but noticeable shift in the balance as experts became less authoritative”
around this time there births was moving from exclusivitly in hospitals to also at home births
Medical hegemony: birth & child rearing authority
- (cont. trend we saw last week)
Physicians-as-Gatekeepers:
midwives as “unsanitary,
ignorant, incompetent, and an
impediment to the assimilation
of immigrants” (p. 16) - Maintain a stronghold on
childrearing authority
Mothers were considered to be
the “consumers of childcare
development expertise, rather
than producers of formal
expertise”
Countermovement: “Trust your gut”
- (~Bauman) From industrial
producers to consumers,
“science of child-rearing
shifted as well toward both
more permissive
recommendations and more
concerns with children’s
developing psyches” - captalization of parenthood - Parents’ own autonomy and
expertise in childrearing
“Trust yourself. You know
more than you think.”
(Negotiating) Childrearing Authorities
Parents/caregivers were
“conscious of the gap between
their practices and the modern, scientific, and right methods for childrearing” (p. 21)
[How do you think SES or
ethnicity or racialization
processes or age or religion or
other factors could affect this
gap?] - babysitter,after-school progrems
“Often, [the] gap between
recommendations and reality
arose because printed advice
typically assumed a middle-class
audience and standard of
living” (p. 21
Transitioning: From Authorities to Experts (1970s)
- “…doctors, psychologists, and other child development professionals had been transformed from childrearing authorities into childrearing experts” (p. 21)
- (…advice) “was no longer seen as authoritatively binding,
[and] parents gained a measure of individual autonomy in
determining the best course for parenting their children”
(Changing) Professional advice on sleeping
side, or front or back
professional vs parents rules
In the information age, parents “have, and have to have, a much more active or engaged relationship with science and
technology than used to be the case. We cannot simply ‘accept’ the findings which scientists produce, if only because scientists so frequently disagree with one another[.]
[…] And everyone now recognizes the
essentially mobile character of science.”
Think about the pandemic!!!!!
“At the same time that parents
have gained greater autonomy to choose among diverse familial
arrangements, parenting styles,
and practices, the state has also
claimed more specific authority
over children’s lives in certain
areas—most notably, in setting
limits regarding child safety” (p.
26)
SES differences
“Although middle-class parents feel a
sense of competitiveness among
parents and an impossible challenge to be perfect, they do not typically have concerns about government
intrusions into their family life. In
contrast, working-class parents and
parents of color are more keenly
aware that they are outside the
mainstream and that public scrutiny of parenting practices could quickly turn from neighborly judgment into official action”
Age
- “During the middle years of parenting, when children were in
grade school, parents tend to rely mostly on their friends and
other parents for advice” (p. 30), especially “friends whose
children [are] a couple of years 1. “During the middle years of parenting, when children were in
grade school, parents tend to rely mostly on their friends and
other parents for advice” (p. 30), especially “friends whose
children [are] a couple of years older than their own” (p. 32) - “[A]dvice-seeking at this stage of parenting [is] more a matter of
reassuring themselves that their children are normal and being
prepared for what was coming up next” (p. 32) - Do you experience a similar situation in your childhoods? How
so?
Class Differences in Parenting
- “More working-class parents described parenting as something
you have to learn by doing and not something you can learn
from a book” (p. 34) - Working-class mothers “were more likely than middle-class
mothers to say that they learned new and helpful information from magazines. (…) “[T]here is some indication that […] working-class parents may look to a slightly different set of experts for guidance and be more likely to regard those experts as
authoritative
Gendered Differences in Parenting
Several men said that they can rely upon their wives to relay
information that they have read or suggest reading material rather
than men taking that initiative.
When directly seeking advice
about parenting on their own, men rely more exclusively upon family
members, friends, coworkers, and doctors
Part 2: Gerson, Kathleen. (2011) The Shaping of a New
Generation
Family Types and Transitions
(Going back to Bauman) Greater Uncertainty and More Changes
“[M]embers of this new generation lived in families more likely to
change shape over time,” including “when parents altered their ties
to each other or to the wider world of work”
Defining Pathways for Young People
In defining what they want for themselves, young people (including
Josh) lament that “building a happy marriage and striking a good
balance between work and home will remain just beyond [their]
grasp. (…) Young people today “take for granted options which their parents barely imagined and their grandparents could not
envision, but they also face dilemmas that decades of prior change have not resolved”
“New Options and New Insecurities”
“Most women no longer assume they can or will want to stay
home with young children, but there is no clear model for how
children should be raised. Most men can no longer assume they
can or will want to support a family on their own, but there is no
clear path to manhood. Work
and family shifts have created an ambiguous mix of new options
and new insecurities, with growing conflicts between work and
parenting, autonomy and commitment, time and money.” (p. 7)
Experiences of Recent Generations
n contrast to the popular claim that this generation feels neglected by
working mothers, unsettled by parental breakups, and wary of equality, they express strong support for working mothers and much greater
concern with the quality of relationships between parents than whether or not parents stayed together or separated
Gender Flexibility (also remember Bauman: current mantra is “flexibility, flexibility, flexibility)
- Key to establishing and maintaining new familial structures is the
concept of gender flexibility - As described by Gerson (p. 10), “gender flexibility involves more
equal sharing and more fluid boundaries for organizing and
apportioning emotional, social, and economic care.”
Economic (In)Dependency?
Hoping to avoid being trapped in an unhappy marriage or deserted by an unfaithful spouse, most women see work as essential to their survival. If a supportive partner cannot be found, they prefer self-reliance over economic dependence within a traditional marriage. Most men, however, worry more about the costs equal sharing might exact on their careers. If time-greedy workplaces make it difficult to strike an equal balance between work and parenting, men prefer a neotraditional
arrangement that allows them to put work first and rely on a
partner for the lion’s share of caregiving.
New generations
neither wish to turn back to earlier gender patterns nor to create a brave new world of disconnected individuals. Most prefer instead to build a life that balances
autonomy and commitment in the context of satisfying work
and an egalitarian partnership.
