Opinion: over-parenting is likely to increase as the digital economy of the 21st century progresses
Parenting has become considerably more time-intensive, emotionally demanding and expensive in recent decades. Keen to ensure their children’s academic success and all-roundedness, middle class mothers in particular are often heavily involved in their children’s schooling and other aspects of their lives. This involves engaging in lengthy conversations with them, taking them to and from a broad array of extracurricular activities and advocating on their behalf.
Studies such as Growing Up in Ireland and Family Rhythms in an Irish context confirm a growing pattern of childrearing behaviours known as ‘concerted cultivation’. This is a style of parenting designed to foster children’s talents and equip them with specific dispositions and social-emotional skills that are valued in schools and by future employers.
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From RTÉ Radio 1’s Today With Claire Byrne, parenting advice from clinical child psychologist Dr David Coleman
Despite increasing concern about the downsides of over-parenting for both adults and children, particularly for those with competing demands or limited financial means, intensive parenting as an ideal is likely to accelerate as the digital economy of the 21st century progresses. Why has there been such a marked cultural shift towards more time-consuming and emotionally absorbing styles of parenting? In light of the pressures and complexities of intensive parenting, is it time to re-think society’s expectations of what it means to be a good parent?
The intensification of parenting broadly coincided with scientific discoveries about the human brain and child development emanating from the fields of neuroscience, behavioural economics and developmental psychology. These frame early childhood in particular as a period of intense vulnerability and parents as the determining force in how their children fare in life.
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From RTÉ Radio 1’s Drivetime, what fights are worth having with your kids?
Informed by this intellectual Holy Trinity, parenting ‘experts’ disseminate a particular view of what it means to be a good parent, therefore upping the childrearing ante and fuelling parental anxiety about getting it right. Meanwhile, media fascination with stories of ‘stranger danger’ and the shrinking of public spaces has meant an end for informal, unsupervised play. This has been largely replaced with adult-led structured activities to optimise children’s development and equip them with skills such as teamwork, grit and the ability to perform in public which are valued in schools and the workplace.
Threats to children’s safety and wellbeing associated with their use of digital media is another factor that has contributed to childrearing becoming more and more challenging. Many parents report feeling the need to be both hyper-vigilant and omnipresent in the event that something goes wrong as their child navigates the world of social media.
Being a parent in the digital age requires difficult conversations about screen time, internet use, cyberbullying and disinformation, which require sophisticated media literacy, negotiation and communication skills. Moreover, digital technologies such as smartphones enable parents to be in constant contact with their children. Apps such as ClassDojo give parents unprecedented access to their children’s school lives through the sharing of photos, videos, and messages throughout the school day.
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From ClassDojo, an introduction to the platform
But the most influential factors contributing to the pressures and complexities of modern parenting stem from the social and political transformations brought on by globalisation and neoliberalism. These include the erosion of social protections and shared responsibility of the 20th century welfare-state and an increasing emphasis on personal responsibility for socio-economic outcomes. From this vantage point, the move towards more involved forms of parenting can be viewed as a rational response by parents to a shifting political-economic landscape characterised by rising economic and employment insecurity and income inequality.
Research suggests that the pattern of intensive childrearing deepened amongst parents in the decade after the global economic downturn of the late 2000s in response to growing uncertainty about their children’s futures. During this period, intensive parenting norms spread to low-income groups who are now as committed to the ideal of concerted cultivation as their middle class peers, even though they lack the financial or cultural resources to fulfil these expectations.
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From RTÉ Radio 1’s Ray D’Arcy Show, child psychotherapist Colman Noctor answers listeners’ questions about parenting issues
With artificial intelligence poised to radically transform workplaces and societies, ‘human-centric skills’ are increasingly recognised as vital by corporations, schools and universities. These are viewed as a means of offsetting the effects of fewer opportunities for human interaction, keeping humans’ advantages over machines in the workplace and preparing them to cope with the rapid changes of this brave new world. Within a changing economic, occupational and ecological landscape, parents are likely to scale up their concerted cultivation efforts in order to prevent their children from becoming downwardly mobile by ‘robot-proofing’ them with the social-emotional skills and psychological tools they need to effectively navigate an increasingly demanding, uncertain and precarious future.
While parents’ childrearing behaviours can be interpreted as a logical response to these changing conditions, numerous studies have documented the mental and physical toll that these ever-increasing complexities, pressures, and expectations can have for parents, as well as for children. The stresses of intensive parenting are particularly acute for mothers, especially those who combine breadwinning activities with childcare obligations or who lack the economic, social or cultural resources necessary to meet these unattainable standards.
Society can be quick to blame poor parenting for all sorts of social ills. Perhaps it is time, though, to ditch intensive parenting in favour of models of caregiving that are less competitive, more sustainable and healthier for all concerned.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ