This essay … Explores how, since the late 1990s, ‘brain claims’ have entered parenting discourse ... more This essay … Explores how, since the late 1990s, ‘brain claims’ have entered parenting discourse in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK. Describes how ‘brain claims’ tend to emphasize the extreme vulnerability of the infant brain to the influence of parents, thereby raising the stakes of parenting and concretizing ideas of parental determinism. Discusses how neuroscience has been appropriated by policy advocates to argue for early intervention into parent-child relationships in the name of preventing social problems.
The term “helicopter parent” is very present today in public and professional discourse on child ... more The term “helicopter parent” is very present today in public and professional discourse on child rearing, as well as in culture more generally, particularly in North America and the United Kingdom. A small number of sociological works have highlighted the paradoxical nature of this phenomenon, which lies in an often exaggerated concern about the “excessive” investment of these so-called “helicopter” parents in their children, within a culture itself. of intensive parenting. This article develops this work in two ways. We resituons first the now ubiquitous use of "helicopter parent" and the adjectives that are associated by examining its discursive history in the terminology of the XX th century - as theoverparenting , smothering (parent hen or brooding parent) or coddling - and highlighting their coexistence with accounts of “bad mothers”, seen as distant and uninvolved. Then, by analyzing the use of the term helicopter parents made in the British media since the end of the XX th century, we discuss how to build the current concerns about overinvestment of parents in the education of their children. We observed that the most recurring themes in media coverage were about parental love gone wrong , parental pressure ( parental pushiness).), as well as the social class of the helicopter parent. Our analysis suggests that the term "helicopter parent" can best be understood as an aspect of the vernacular of the XXI th century that expresses an aversion to perceived outcomes of intensive parenting, but leaves intact the premises concerning parental responsibility in terms of individual and social pathologies. We conclude that, for sociologists, an important characteristic of the helicopter parent is that he is generally perceived as a “problem” parent from the middle class, and we suggest that this construction of the social origin of parental failures is one. important question to consider in future studies of parenting culture. Keywords : helicopter parent, intensive parenting, class, love
The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users ar... more The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record.
In December 2017, the House of Commons Parliamentary Science and Technology Committee put out a c... more In December 2017, the House of Commons Parliamentary Science and Technology Committee put out a call for submissions to an Inquiry that would consider the evidence-base for early intervention policies, with a particular focus on ‘Adverse Childhood Experiences’ or ACEs. This article analyses those submissions and the transcripts of the Inquiry’s oral sessions in the belief that they constitute a useful window through which to explore the types of claims being made in ACEs discourse. Our aim is to assess whether the ACEs phenomenon represents a continuity with what has been termed the ‘first three years movement’ (Thornton, 2011a, 2011b) – social policy and philanthropic activism which focuses on the earliest years of life in the name of preventing social problems ‘down the line’. In particular, we consider constructions of parents as determinate of these social problems through their influence on their children and the ways in which these are gendered in new ways.
The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users ar... more The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record.
... www.kent.ac.uk/chss Jenny Billings, Jan Macvarish Sarah Appleton Centre for Health Services S... more ... www.kent.ac.uk/chss Jenny Billings, Jan Macvarish Sarah Appleton Centre for Health Services Studies University of Kent February 2007 ... Date: February 2007 Commissioned and Funded by: Kent Teenage Pregnancy Partnership Jenny Billings Jan Macvarish Sarah Appleton ...
The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users ar... more The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record.
The study summarised here took as its starting point the growing frequency with which claims abou... more The study summarised here took as its starting point the growing frequency with which claims about neuroscience, and what it is said to tell us about children, populate policy documents and statements by senior officials responsible for health and welfare services. The study was conducted by sociologists at the University of Kent and Aston University and funded through the Faraday Institute's 'Uses and Abuses of Biology' programme. The key conclusions of the study are: Brain claims enter a policy context which is already convinced that something must be done about parents. Brain claims, challenged elsewhere as lacking scientific foundation, are imported and repeated in the British context. Brain claims serve a rhetorical and metaphorical function, opening up the parent child relationship to earlier and more intimate interventions. Brain claims intensify the demands on parents by threatening lifelong consequences and reinterpret the ordinary practices of loving fa...
This essay … Explores how, since the late 1990s, ‘brain claims’ have entered parenting discourse ... more This essay … Explores how, since the late 1990s, ‘brain claims’ have entered parenting discourse in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK. Describes how ‘brain claims’ tend to emphasize the extreme vulnerability of the infant brain to the influence of parents, thereby raising the stakes of parenting and concretizing ideas of parental determinism. Discusses how neuroscience has been appropriated by policy advocates to argue for early intervention into parent-child relationships in the name of preventing social problems.
The term “helicopter parent” is very present today in public and professional discourse on child ... more The term “helicopter parent” is very present today in public and professional discourse on child rearing, as well as in culture more generally, particularly in North America and the United Kingdom. A small number of sociological works have highlighted the paradoxical nature of this phenomenon, which lies in an often exaggerated concern about the “excessive” investment of these so-called “helicopter” parents in their children, within a culture itself. of intensive parenting. This article develops this work in two ways. We resituons first the now ubiquitous use of "helicopter parent" and the adjectives that are associated by examining its discursive history in the terminology of the XX th century - as theoverparenting , smothering (parent hen or brooding parent) or coddling - and highlighting their coexistence with accounts of “bad mothers”, seen as distant and uninvolved. Then, by analyzing the use of the term helicopter parents made in the British media since the end of the XX th century, we discuss how to build the current concerns about overinvestment of parents in the education of their children. We observed that the most recurring themes in media coverage were about parental love gone wrong , parental pressure ( parental pushiness).), as well as the social class of the helicopter parent. Our analysis suggests that the term "helicopter parent" can best be understood as an aspect of the vernacular of the XXI th century that expresses an aversion to perceived outcomes of intensive parenting, but leaves intact the premises concerning parental responsibility in terms of individual and social pathologies. We conclude that, for sociologists, an important characteristic of the helicopter parent is that he is generally perceived as a “problem” parent from the middle class, and we suggest that this construction of the social origin of parental failures is one. important question to consider in future studies of parenting culture. Keywords : helicopter parent, intensive parenting, class, love
The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users ar... more The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record.
In December 2017, the House of Commons Parliamentary Science and Technology Committee put out a c... more In December 2017, the House of Commons Parliamentary Science and Technology Committee put out a call for submissions to an Inquiry that would consider the evidence-base for early intervention policies, with a particular focus on ‘Adverse Childhood Experiences’ or ACEs. This article analyses those submissions and the transcripts of the Inquiry’s oral sessions in the belief that they constitute a useful window through which to explore the types of claims being made in ACEs discourse. Our aim is to assess whether the ACEs phenomenon represents a continuity with what has been termed the ‘first three years movement’ (Thornton, 2011a, 2011b) – social policy and philanthropic activism which focuses on the earliest years of life in the name of preventing social problems ‘down the line’. In particular, we consider constructions of parents as determinate of these social problems through their influence on their children and the ways in which these are gendered in new ways.
The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users ar... more The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record.
... www.kent.ac.uk/chss Jenny Billings, Jan Macvarish Sarah Appleton Centre for Health Services S... more ... www.kent.ac.uk/chss Jenny Billings, Jan Macvarish Sarah Appleton Centre for Health Services Studies University of Kent February 2007 ... Date: February 2007 Commissioned and Funded by: Kent Teenage Pregnancy Partnership Jenny Billings Jan Macvarish Sarah Appleton ...
The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users ar... more The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record.
The study summarised here took as its starting point the growing frequency with which claims abou... more The study summarised here took as its starting point the growing frequency with which claims about neuroscience, and what it is said to tell us about children, populate policy documents and statements by senior officials responsible for health and welfare services. The study was conducted by sociologists at the University of Kent and Aston University and funded through the Faraday Institute's 'Uses and Abuses of Biology' programme. The key conclusions of the study are: Brain claims enter a policy context which is already convinced that something must be done about parents. Brain claims, challenged elsewhere as lacking scientific foundation, are imported and repeated in the British context. Brain claims serve a rhetorical and metaphorical function, opening up the parent child relationship to earlier and more intimate interventions. Brain claims intensify the demands on parents by threatening lifelong consequences and reinterpret the ordinary practices of loving fa...
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