Abstract
The article explores the different meanings behind the narratives of “family,” “childcare,” and “child protection” in public discourses against the National Strategy for the Child (NSC) 2019–2030 in Bulgaria. These meanings are seen as reflecting the intertwining and cumulative effects of transnational and local influences in the anti-gender movement. Using frame analysis as an approach in social movement studies, the aim is to analyse the main ideas of NSC opponents—conservative far-right non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and citizens who joined the discussion during the public debate on the Strategy in January 2019. We differentiate between the discourses of the NGOs and the critical citizens, paying attention to the way they use the narrative of return—return to traditional family forms and child-rearing models. The conservative NGOs declared themselves to be defenders of Bulgarian children and families against the liberal policies of the European Union (EU) and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) lobbies. The citizens’ discourse is directed against the child-centred philosophy of the Strategy, seen as a threat to both the children themselves and parents’ rights, but it rarely mentions LGBT and gendering as a danger. The discussion revealed the deep distrust of citizens and parents towards the state and its institutions, which was amplified and instrumentalized by the far-right NGOs who mobilized and organized a mass social movement against the Strategy.
Introduction
Between February and June 2019, following the Bulgarian government’s proposal of the draft of the National Strategy for the Child (NSC), mass nationwide protests of parents and citizens took place. The resistance started with a petition, 1 according to which the aim of the Strategy was to create a “specialized police structure” that would be dedicated to the “abduction and trade of Bulgarian children.” The petition was accompanied by the creation of the Facebook group “No to the National Strategy for the Child 2019–2030,” 2 which reached more than 100,000 members and organized protests using slogans such as “Take your hands off our children.” 3 Many conservative non-governmental organizations (NGOs) also took part in the mass campaign against the Strategy and presented it as a threat to the family’s well-being and children’s interests. These messages received widespread popularity, and in the face of strong public opposition, the government decided to withdraw the document.
The civil mobilization against the Strategy can be understood only in the context of the anti-gender movement that started in 2018 with opposition to the ratification of the Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (the so-called Istanbul Convention, IC). The ratification of the Convention met strong opposition from nationalist parties in the government, the Socialist Party, the President of the Republic, and the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. The mass campaign against the IC fed on public fears of the “third sex,” “gender ideology,” and same-sex marriage, and it fueled extremely negative reactions that prompted the government to withdraw the bill. Adding to the opposition to the Convention, Bulgaria’s Constitutional Court ruled that the IC was unconstitutional. The opponents of the IC interpreted the decision as a victory for true Bulgarian Christian values, the Bulgarian family, and the Bulgarian nation against the “Brussels diktat.” 4
Although the Strategy does not mention “gender” or “women’s rights,” the resistance against it can be viewed as a second mobilization within the anti-gender movement, because it shares many common traits with the mobilization against the IC and its messages were elaborated and disseminated by a similar set of actors. The “moral entrepreneurs” 5 who declared themselves to be defenders of the Bulgarian family and children against the dangerous gender ideology in the debate around the IC were joined by newly registered NGOs with the same “mission.” The two anti-gender mobilizations relied heavily on the idea of the sanctity of the family, used as the main signifier of Bulgarian identity and nation and a main symbolic means for distinguishing “us” from “them.” 6 As in other countries in the region, the narrative of threat to the traditional family and to children consolidated resistance against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movements, gay rights, and feminism. 7
There are, however, several important differences, which make the two mobilizations distinctive. First, while the mobilization against the Convention was not preceded by similar protests against laws on domestic violence, the protests against the Strategy were not the first ones against proposed changes in children’s rights legislation. In 2012, a draft Law for the Child unleashed protests by parents 8 and young scientists 9 against the “danger” of “a nationalization of children” 10 and “violation” of the rights of parents. Therefore, it can be argued that resistance against the Strategy integrated already existing anti-child’s rights sentiments with the anti-gender discourse. A second difference between the two mobilizations is that, while the campaign against the IC took place mainly in the media and in political debate, the resistance against the NSC remained not only on a discursive and political level but also turned into a civil movement mobilizing people to join crowded protests that took place in various cities across the country. Finally, the public resistance to the NSC differs from the attack on the IC not only in its extent and popularity, but also in its focus on the notions of “family,” “childcare,” and “child protection.” While the theme of a European conspiracy for “stealing our kids” elaborated in the protests against the IC 11 was present, what was central for the debate around the NSC is the focus on the problems of childcare, families, and the role of the state in family affairs—that is, who, where, and how Bulgarian children can best be taken care of.
These crucial differences require an approach that takes into account not only the “nationalist consensus” 12 and “the rise of illiberal national-populists” 13 in Bulgaria but also the ways in which the anti-Strategy mobilization resonates with existing attitudes to and perceptions of childhood, parenthood, “proper” child-rearing, and family. As argued by Grzebalska, Kováts, and Pető, the messages of the populist Right movements “uncover pertinent issues which resonate with the public.” 14 More recently, Eszter Kováts has pointed to the way the arguments of anti-gender actors in east-central Europe partially reflect the social and political tensions created by existing hierarchies between East and West. 15 On a similar note, according to Graff and Korolczuk, “the current attack on ‘gender’ would not be such a success if right-wing populism did not address the real needs and grievances of many families in Europe and beyond.” 16 According to them, the affective side of anti-gender movements as mobilizing shared emotions and collective identities should also be taken into account, because “anti-gender actors share a distinctive emotional repertoire: common tropes and narratives, focused mostly on dangers awaiting children and families, which trigger negative emotions such as shame, anxiety and fear, but also positive ones, such as pride and solidarity.” 17 In the case of the anti-Strategy mobilization in Bulgaria, the focus on the feelings and sentiments generated by the anti-gender discourse is helpful in understanding the mass participation of ordinary citizens.
Building on these theoretical approaches, in this article we aim to explore and disentangle the different meanings behind the narratives of “family,” “childcare,” and “child protection” in the public discourses against the NSC and to analyse the ways they relate to the anti-gender discourse and sentiments disseminated by anti-Convention actors. Following Paternotte and Kuhar, 18 who claim that anti-gender campaigns reflect not only transnational forces and a common ideological framework but also local processes of reception, we view these meanings as reflecting both transnational and national influences. We also pay attention to the uses of the “narrative of return” 19 to traditional family forms and child-rearing models in this campaign as a signifier for the Bulgarian national identity and Bulgarian values but also as a means for symbolic resistance against certain meanings and ideas in the Strategy recognized by parents as “foreign.” We try to go beyond the idea of the inherent “goodness” of child rights and analyse the debate about the NSC as a cultural and political battle for social control over defining the best type of care for “the child.”
We use frame analysis as an approach in social movement studies, which allows for analysis of the interpretative schema on which collective action is based. 20 As applied in social movement studies, it is a useful approach in understanding the ways in which social problems are defined, solutions suggested, and people mobilized. Being similar to ideology, but located a level below it, frames are worldviews that guide public behaviour. 21 Frame analysis “allows consideration of how collective actors involved in a debate construct and communicate their visions of reality.” 22 Through the use of frame analysis, we reveal which ideas of the NSC are recognized as (producing future) social problems by the Strategy’s opponents and which solutions and future scenarios these opponents provide. Framing singles out how the anti-Strategy activists construct their own identity in opposition to the identity of their opponents, who are the “us” and the “them.” We use two types of data—public statements by NGOs and politicians opposing the Strategy and positions expressed by ordinary citizens and parents in the discussion forum on the Strategy website.
In the first section of the article, we briefly describe the Bulgarian context of family relations. In the second section, we take a look at the National Strategy for the Child (NSC) 2019–2030 and place it in the context of child rights policies in Bulgaria to outline the new concepts and roles inherent in it. Our analysis of this document is informed by the sociological approach to childhood and child rights as a political issue. 23 In the third section, we analyse the anti-Strategy discourse elaborated by right-wing NGOs. In the fourth section, we focus more closely on the anti-Strategy discourse voiced by ordinary citizens and parents.
Bulgarian Families in Context
According to the legal definition in the Bulgarian family code, the family is based on the principles of voluntary marriage, equality between man and woman, and state and social protection of marriage and children. 24 National studies reveal that family and children are the most appreciated existential values among Bulgarian youth, 25 and familism, viewed as an ideology of high trust in family and kinship supplemented with strong intergenerational ties, has been strongly supported in people’s beliefs. 26
Although the family as a marital union of two parents and children is the most widespread family model in present-day Bulgaria, the classical format of the family is gradually losing its precise conventional outlines and is modifying into an array of multifaceted forms. The pluralization of family models as a general trend in modern societies had taken place in contemporary Bulgaria with a relatively slow diversification of family unions. The marriage rate has been declining and the number of cohabitations has been rapidly increasing from the beginning of the 1990s onwards. Data from the census of 2011 show that 13.7 per cent of all families function as consensual unions where partners live together without being legally married, compared to 6.6 per cent of cohabitations registered in the 2001 census. 27 The trend of a steep increase in cohabitations has been paralleled by an increase of newborns in this type of union. According to national statistics, during the last decade, two out of three children having been born in cohabitations. 28 While most children live with both parents, the share of single-parent families has increased—14.7 per cent of all families in the country are now families with one parent, 80 per cent of whom are mothers with a child/children. 29 The pattern of single parenthood has also been on the rise because of high emigration abroad. According to a UNICEF survey, one out of four children has a parent living and working in another country. 30 Same-sex marriages are illegal, which makes homosexual unions invisible in official registration. The growing number of foster and adopted families, as well as families that raise children conceived through assisted reproductive technologies (ART), enhances the diversified picture of family forms that go beyond the concept of the “traditional two-parent model” of family. These statistics have been accompanied by survey data on people’s increasing tolerance towards new, non-traditional living arrangements. 31
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, changes in child-rearing practices in eastern Europe were described as moving from being focused on obedience and submission to independence. 32 More recently, there is some evidence that new types of parenting practices have appeared—child-centred, time-consuming, highly individualized, and focused on the autonomy of the child—among Bulgarian urban middle-class families. 33 The cross-national data on child-rearing values, 34 however, generally show that the culture of child-raising in postsocialist Bulgaria seems to be embedded in traditional values that emphasize conformity and interdependence and that there is no observable, large-scale pattern of change. According to the European Value Survey conducted in 2017, only 39.5 per cent of Bulgarians supported the claim that it is important for children to learn independence at home, while there is more support for child-rearing goals that may be named traditional or collectivistic, such as the value of hard work (91%), tolerance and respect for other people (65%), and good manners (67%).
The NSC (2019–2030)
The NSC (2019–2030) is part of the process of development of Bulgarian legislation on children’s rights that started at the beginning of the twenty-first century with the introduction of the Child Protection Act (2000), based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The main driving force behind the process of introduction of children’s rights has come from international organizations—the United Nations, the World Bank, UNICEF, and especially the European Union—which urged the Bulgarian state to guarantee the rights of children as part of the process of accession to the EU. 35 According to the Child Protection Act, its principles should be realized through a national strategy providing a basis for the state policy of child protection. 36
This process is not unique for Bulgaria and should be viewed as part of the globalization of the so-called “international children’s rights regime” created by the UNCRC 37 and, more broadly, of the “new global interest in childhood” 38 described by the anthropologists Thelen and Haukanes. As they argue, the process of globalization of childhood follows specific Western middle-class conceptions of what childhood is and what a “good” and “proper” childhood should be. The reception of these conceptions in different local contexts is far from unproblematic. The global shift towards the “deprivatization” of childhood and parenthood expressed in new legislation and in educational and child protection policies can lead to tensions and controversies around the ideas of “good” and “proper” childhood.
In light of these global developments, the Bulgarian government’s attempt to adopt the NSC 2019–2030 is an example of such tension between the new global ideas about childhood and childcare and the views of parents, supported and instrumentalized by anti-gender NGOs, which have taken the position of defenders of Bulgarian children and the family. Tensions around the introduction of the concept of children’s rights in Bulgaria were visible before the debate around NSC. Even before the aforementioned protests in 2012, sociological research showed that there was little support for the idea of children’s rights. Based on the results of representative sociological research conducted in 1999, Velina Todorova noted that the introduction of the Convention on the Rights of the Child was done against the backdrop of a “traditionalistic-authoritarian model of upbringing, which does not allow for the intervention of external, public actors in family relations.” 39 The state’s role was recognized as important mainly in the provision of financial and economic support in the upbringing of children, and less than one-fifth of the population supported children’s rights to express opinions and child participation in decisions affecting them. The role of the state as the guarantor of children’s rights was practically unknown to large segments of Bulgarian society. This discrepancy between legislation and cultural norms—between the way the Bulgarian society and legislators viewed the role of the state in parent–child relations—led Todorova to note that it “could lead to the activation of strong public attitudes against the recognition of a broader spectrum of rights to children.” 40
To understand some of the reasons for the violent reaction against the NSC, we conducted a brief comparison between the “old” NSC (2008–2018) and the “new” NSC (2019–2030). For the purposes of this article, our analysis was limited to changes in the notions of “the child,” “the parent,” and the “family.” In contrast to the “old” Strategy, described as a “political document” aimed at the improvement of the well-being of Bulgarian children, 41 the new Strategy was named a “visionary document,” reflecting the “vision of the Bulgarian state and society for the development of the next generations of Bulgarian citizens.” 42 The vision is summed up in the leading principle as “all rights to all children.” 43 These claims seem to mark a shift in the discourse on childhood, which needs analysis as a possible premise for the reactions against the Strategy.
In stark contrast to the previous Strategy, the new one devotes considerable attention to its “conceptual basis, principles, and approaches,” 44 which can be applied to every child. At the centre is the so-called “life-cycle approach,” which provides a classification of the stages in a child’s development from the start of pregnancy to eighteen years of age. 45 A key element in this approach is the concept of risk as ever-present in the child’s life. While in the previous strategy the use of “risk” was restricted to a category named “children at risk,” which included types of children such as institutionalized children or victims of violence, the new strategy provides a detailed description of the risks inherent in every stage of a child’s life from age 0 to 18 years. 46 These risks are extremely various and are associated not only with the health, security, education, and development of the child, but also with social risks (poverty, discrimination), including some very vague and problematic formulations like “no preparation for the labour market.” Besides “risk,” another crucial concept in the Strategy is “competence,” represented as crucial for children’s lives in the twenty-first century because of “the new challenges and risks” in the child’s environment 47 —digitalization, mobility, migration, and social fragmentation. Most of the competencies seem to be directly tied to the needs of the global labour market—digital skills, language skills, ability for quick adaptation, and emotional intelligence. The Strategy ascribes adults (parents and professionals) with the task of preparing children for the world by building their skills and knowledge 48 and describes them as needing support. The second key approach in the Strategy is the “child-centred approach.” 49 The concept of the child as a carrier of rights is described as central for the institutions that elaborate policies and programmes and provide services directed to children and families.
In general, the vision of childhood inherent in the NSC marks a shift from more specific and context-based ideas of childhood to a highly abstract, universalist notion of childhood related to an individualized image of “the child” as a future participant in the global, competitive labour market and supported by the language of developmental psychology. This shift goes along with a redefinition of the risks in the child’s development from social and concrete to multiple and ever-present, which dissolves the idea of families into “children” and “parents.” This shift can be viewed as providing legitimation for a possible extension of the state’s child protection policies and placing parents in a devalued and vulnerable position—first, by explicitly and markedly addressing “every child”; second, by suggesting that children should be an object of public scrutiny and policies at every stage of their development, starting from conception; and third, by the redefinition of risks as related to every child.
The Agents of the Anti-Strategy Movement—Right-Wing NGOs
The main theses expressed in the public debate against the NSC were formulated, publicly launched, and multiplied in statements by representatives of the several NGOs—Society and Values Association (SVA), Association for Home Education (AHO), Association “Choice for Life,” “March for the Family,” and “ROD International”—that are most active among right-wing civil society organizations. The SVA was registered in Bulgaria in 2007 but gained popularity as the initiator of the campaign against the IC in late 2017. Its leader was the main speaker of the right-wing civil organizations opposing the ratification of the IC by publicly expressing their views against the use of the word “gender” in the IC and other documents, against the danger of “gender ideology” for the Bulgarian family, and in favour of the understanding of sex only as biological and binary. At the time, investigative journalists discovered a link between the SVA and far-right reactionary organizations such as the World Congress of Families (WCF), whose logo was alongside the SVA logo on its website. Soon after, the WCF logo disappeared, but all SVA activities confirm the impression that the Bulgarian organization is part of a global and extreme conservative network that fights against liberal child and family policies. The SVA follows strategies recommended by the “Agenda Europe” network 50 —accusing opponents of violating human rights, presenting themselves as victims, and using liberal concepts with alternative meanings.
In line with the “Agenda Europe” goals, the SVA has consistently fought to impose an understanding of gender as having a biological, binary essence and of the family as a union between one man and one woman with their children. The SVA monitors not only the legislative work of the Bulgarian parliament, but also that of the European Parliament and the UN, and it publishes statements and critiques about every event that deals with gender, reproductive rights, family, and children. The organization urges the Bulgarian state not to sign international documents that protect women’s and LGBT people’s rights, citing the Bulgarian Constitutional Court’s decision on the IC from 2018, according to which the IC and the concept of gender used in it are incompatible with the Bulgarian Constitution. When in October 2021 a question was asked in the Bulgarian Constitutional Court about the meaning of “sex” in the Bulgarian Constitution, the SVA sent a statement that sex should be understood only in a biological sense, stressing that the Constitution protects the Bulgarian family as based on marriage between a man and a woman. A leitmotif in all the activities of the SVA is the suggestion that the Bulgarian “traditional family” and children are threatened by the “liberal policies” of the Bulgarian state, which implements the decisions of the EU and UN institutions, while the SVA expresses the interests of true, ordinary Bulgarians and acts as their defender.
The SVA was one of the most active opponents of the draft of the NSC in 2019. It was joined by other organizations, such as the Pro-Life Choice Association and the newly registered “ROD International” (Parents United for Kids) and “March for the Family,” with a similar orientation. As ROD International put it,
The ROD Association organized itself to respond to the Child Strategy . . .. We stood against the Bulgarian legislator who is against the traditional Bulgarian family and family values. Not only the IC, but also regarding the Strategy and the Social Services Act . . . there is a set of laws that embody the ideology of gender organizations, of LGBT organizations, and we are fighting against this legislation. We are fighting against the Strategy that is being prepared in Brussels—there is liberalism, it is evil! Let’s defend children and families from the encroachments of the state.
51
In fact, in both cases—due to the moral panic provoked by the possible IC ratification and the anti-NSC campaign—right-wing, conservative civil society organizations forced the government to abandon its decisions; both the ratification of the Convention and the NSC project were withdrawn.
The repetition of the same theses in the statements of all right-wing conservative organizations is remarkable. Moreover, they function as a network that prepared common petitions and objections, on the occasions of both the debate and the campaign, to block the adoption of the Strategy. Afterwards, they stated their aspiration to become the main actors to express civil positions regarding policies towards the family and children. For instance, in the election campaign for Parliament in 2021, they tried to create their own political lobby by attracting candidate MPs from different parties to join their declaration “I Vote for the Family!” According to this document, the candidate PMs declared their commitment:
To advocate for the establishment of the family, based on voluntary marriage between one man and one woman, according to our Constitution, and as the best environment for the upbringing and development of children [. . .] opposing policies aimed at erasing gender differences in the public sphere by introducing gender and gender identity other than biological, while respecting equality of the sexes. To advocate for respect for the primary right and responsibility of parents for the upbringing, education, health and education of their children, according to their choices and beliefs, by opposing systematic sex education in kindergartens and schools; advocating for the right of our country, according to the EU Treaty, to determine its own policy in the field of marriage and family, parental rights, education, and health.
52
The declaration “I Vote for the Family!” was signed by 125 parliamentary candidates from different political parties—far-right, nationalist, conservative, and socialist—85 NGOs, and 65,000 individuals. This is a sign that the discourse on the defence of the Bulgarian family and traditional values has become common and dominant.
In line with the main arguments of the anti-gender discourse, created during the anti-IC campaign, mobilization for the “traditional family,” children, and “Bulgarian traditional values” also formed the cornerstone of the anti-Strategy movement.
53
The anti-Strategy agents presented themselves as those who advocate for and defend the traditional Bulgarian family and children. Their objections to the Strategy can be illustrated by the following statement:
In the Strategy, state policies related to children are equated with parental care. This is a brutal invasion into the private space of the family institution and an attempt at total control over the individual. The aim is to seek and find reasons for removing children from their families and thus to exercise repression in order to destroy the traditional Christian family. Practically, the philosophy of the Strategy is a war against the family.
54
The Strategy’s child-centredness, as mentioned above, is an innovation and is perceived by its opponents as a violation of a parent’s basic human rights and as a form of discrimination that empowers the state. Opponents’ main argument is that the hidden goal of the Strategy is to make it easier for state institutions to remove children from their families, to indoctrinate and sexualize them. The rejection of state intervention is argued also by reference to the Communist past, during which the emancipation of women, the “insertion” of children in kindergartens, education in atheism, and control by the state had negative consequences for the family and Christian values.
This is not just lobbying by interested communities, such as LGBT organizations and pedophiles, but a deliberate change of legal reality aimed at destroying the traditional family and taking over the care of children directly from the state, which claims to dispose of children’s lives at the expense of biological parents.
55
While denouncing liberalism as the enemy of traditional values and the Bulgarian family, these NGOs insist that the family is inviolable and sacred and that there should be no interference in its affairs by state institutions. The family is postulated to be the only and best environment for raising children, and one that needs to be protected from the influence of state institutions seen as the conduit of Brussels’ dangerous liberal policies. Children are viewed as belonging exclusively to the family and not to the state.
According to the network of these organizations, the solution to the current problems of demographic crisis and malevolent influences from the outside (like the Strategy) lies in a return to the pre-socialist past. Usually, it is not specifically defined, but the interwar period of economic prosperity and the most heroic time of the Bulgarian Revival (the end of the nineteenth century) are those periods of the past that are most actualized as sources of national pride. In these past times are found the strong roots of national identity and of the stable Bulgarian family.
Traditionalism is a leading frame in the backlash movement against gender equality and women’s rights, appearing in the campaign against IC and also present in the movement against the NSC. According to its activists and moral entrepreneurs, young people must “shift to a focus on the family, to revive the Bulgarian model of family.” In this family, “the wife must obey her husband. She has a responsibility to her husband, her family, her lineage, and God.” 56
In the popular imagination, the ideal traditional Bulgarian family is patriarchal and dominated by the authority and power of the father. The female role is reduced to that of mother and wife, considered as predestined by nature. It is the family that is governed by natural law. “This family has saved the Bulgarian nation through the centuries,” claim the activists. They also raise the slogan: “Without family, there are no children, without children, there is no family, and without children and family there is no Bulgaria.” 57 The solution to the demographic crisis and the moral decline of the family is to be found in a return to roots and the past. In this, the moral entrepreneurs see their mission: “to strengthen family values as bequeathed to us by our forefathers and fathers. Bulgaria will be.” 58 Return to the traditional family past would also save the cultural uniqueness of Bulgarians, they claim: “The EU will react, but Bulgarians must determine their laws, their future, the future of their children.” 59
The narrative of the organizations that oppose the Strategy combines anti-elitism and anti-globalism with claims about the cultural uniqueness of Bulgarians and suggestions of fear of Others, “enemies,” and “agents of evil—the queers and Brussels,” who “want to make the Bulgarian a slave of global capital, of Brussels’ diktat”— rhetoric used also during the anti-IC campaign. 60
Ethnonationalism as the opposite of the dangerous liberalism of the “Other”— European policies and practices—reverberates strongly in the common statement against the Strategy. As the anti-Strategy network voices it,
The National Strategy for the Child 2019-2030 is extremely far from Bulgarian reality, identity and history, for which the family institution has played a key role in preserving the self-consciousness and survival of the Bulgarian people over the centuries.
61
Anti-liberalism, anti-globalism, anti-genderism, ethnonationalism, and strong traditionalism are the common frames of the anti-strategy discourse of right-wing NGOs. They are the signs of a backlash movement that wants to abolish democratic policies and the rights of women and minority groups.
“Voices” of Ordinary Citizens and Parents in the Public Online Discussion
NGOs were joined by thousands of parents who expressed their discontent in massive protests, online discussions in the Facebook group created for the purpose, and parenting forums. 62 We chose to analyse parents’ comments in the public online discussion on the government website, 63 which aims at facilitating cooperation between the state and citizens, business, and NGOs in the elaboration of policies. We assume that they are written with the formal intention of representing civil society and therefore find them appropriate for the aims of this study. At the same time, they cannot be viewed as representative of the opinions of the entire population of Bulgaria. First, they were written in a very limited time span of 24 days (January–February 2019) and amount to only 189 comments. Second, because of their anonymity, it is not clear whether they were written by autonomous citizens or by members of NGOs or, for example, by Internet trolls. Nevertheless, they can be viewed as a specific type of online participation in the anti-Strategy mobilization, which included a wider range of social actors. Our methodological approach follows the micro-frame analysis 64 of social movements as instrumental for research into the way frames relate to the shared sentiments, perceptions, and everyday experiences of participants.
The comments in the public discussion represent a complex picture of positive and negative opinions on the Strategy that also interact with each other. Most of the comments express a negative position towards the Strategy, which reflects the massive negative reaction shown in the media. Positive opinions are expressed mainly by the liberal and child rights–oriented organizations that took part in the preliminary work and consultations on the Strategy. Their arguments for the Strategy emphasize its compliance with the UNCRC and “conceptual growth” (comment 6 65 ) in comparison with the previous Strategy. Another NGO proponent describes the Strategy as a “challenge to Bulgarian legislation and practice” and as placing high demands on the professional practice of people in the child protection system (comment 45). The solution to overcoming this challenge, according to the same organization, lies in the education of both parents and professionals and support for so-called “positive parenting” (comment 46). The opinions of the supporters of the Strategy are too limited in number to allow for conclusions, but they generally subscribe to the child-centred vision of the Strategy. They contain no narratives about the family, because, within this logic, families are fragmented into “children” and “parents,” with the figure of the professional as a much-needed mediator between them.
In contrast to the few positive comments, the negative opinions belong mostly to website users who can broadly be named “citizens.” Generally, these comments reiterate the position that “families/parents know best.” The cognitive frames behind this claim, however, are different from the ones elaborated by the right-wing NGOs. The anti-gender stance is hardly present—“genderism” as a threat to children is mentioned rarely in comments on the “harmful” effects of sex education and of “third sex” propaganda at school. However, there is reference to a range of public problems already raised by grassroots parental activism in Bulgaria, such as homeschooling, vaccination choice, father’s rights and parental alienation, the situation of children with disabilities, and the financial difficulties of families with children. Therefore, these comments represent a specific discourse that relates more to the everyday realities of parenting than to that of the NGOs. In a way, the forum “translates” the abstract ideas and messages of the Strategy into practical issues.
There is also a frequent emphasis on the parental identity of the people expressing their opinions. As one citizen comments, “as a parent, I cannot remain indifferent reading the National Strategy for Children” (comment 101). While Bulgarian ethnocultural identity is mentioned, what is primarily at stake in this discussion is the identity of parents, which is much more personal and linked to powerful emotions such as anxiety and shame. These emotions seem to be provoked mostly by the image of the “child in danger” created by the NGOs and their claim that the actual goal of the Strategy is to take children away from their families. The image of children being taken away from their parents by social workers powerfully mobilizes the identity categories “mother,” “father,” and “parent.” The comments create a corresponding figure of the “parent in danger”—the parent threatened with being left without his or her children and deprived of parental identity. The typical image of the “parent in danger” is the poor but white biological mother whose children have been taken away by social workers because of her poverty (probably inciting child neglect and abuse) and placed with foster parents:
Social workers take nice, white children off their mothers’ chests because they were poor, because they didn’t have a car, and so it’s insane, and they give BGN 800 to each [foster] family to look after them, instead of financially or in other humane ways helping these miserable mothers to take care of their own children. (Comment 98).
These types of comments not only portray, discursively and in a racialized way, the inherent superiority of biological parenthood over alternative forms of childcare like foster families, but they also reflect a sense of threat and profound anxiety that resonates with the core of parents’ personhood.
The most debated issue in the discussion is the ban on the use of physical punishment proposed in the Strategy. The violent critique against this measure is the main reason for parents’ negative reaction to the Strategy, and it is important to analyse the way this issue is related to parents’ emotions and identities. In the comments, the ban on physical punishment is linked to the threat of children being taken away from their parents:
I think a slap is 1000 times better than taking away the children (from their families) and placing them in foster families. Bulgarian parents are good parents and usually use the slap as a last resort and in moderation! I am completely against this extreme measure (the ban), and I think that with it we are going to the other extreme—raising spoiled and irresponsible children who think that there are no boundaries and everything is allowed to them. (Comment 3)
The debate around physical punishment can be seen as a cultural clash between supporters of “old” and “new” methods of child-raising. A publicly known fact is that during socialism slapping was a very popular method for imposing discipline on children. The approval of “mild” forms of physical punishment continued into the post-socialist era. Research conducted in 2012 66 shows that 68 per cent of Bulgarians approved of “mild” forms of physical punishment such as slapping and pulling the ear—“with an educational goal.” At the same time, according to the results of the same research, 83 per cent claim that they oppose the use of violence and violence-based methods of education, which undermine a child’s dignity. Different research conducted in 2018 67 showed that 88 per cent of parents believe that slapping is ineffective as a means of educating children, but two-thirds of parents have used some form of physical punishment or other “traumatizing practices.”
The public discussion around physical punishment provoked by the Strategy reveals not only the contradictions between values and practices of child-rearing but also the deep anxieties and shame provoked by the expert discourse that claims every kind of physical punishment is harmful to children. The fear of losing their children exacerbates the anxieties around implicit questions such as “Are parents good if they slap their child irregularly?” “What is the correct way to raise a child?” and “How does the parent exercise parental authority?” The anxiety around parenting is in no way specific to Bulgarian society but is an inherent part of the cultural climate of child-raising in contemporary societies. 68
The comments show that in the discourse of citizens, the “families know best” argument is used not only as a discursive construct based on the “culturally entrenched idea that parents always have the best intentions with regard to their children,” 69 but it is also related to deeply embodied emotions and identities whose mobilization is evident in the public discussion. As a form of self-defence against the new cultural ideas about childhood and child-raising promoted by the Strategy, the comments present a relatively coherent vision of family and parents as being competent in raising their children and taking the best possible decisions. The “past” functions as an important signifier in this defence through the narrative of return.
The narrative of return in the discourse of citizens does not refer to a specific past moment but to an immutable past. The “family” is described as a sacred and unchangeable unit for raising children in the best possible way—“the best place for a child in the last millennium” (comment 40). References to Christian values and God are also used to signify and reaffirm the eternal “goodness” and godly character of the immutable “family.” Traditional Christian values help families resist negative influences from the modern world—immorality, aggression, and drugs but also “sex education at an early age, perverse self-determination of sexual orientation, incitement to experiment in this field, biased and lobbying attempts to vaccinate all children, the withdrawal of parents’ authority in the upbringing of their own children” (comment 65). The understanding of parenting as the implementation of Christian values makes any idea of developing parental skills and competencies unacceptable and reinforces a negative reaction to the Strategy. The narrative of return is evoked to designate the “old” cultural model of child-raising and to reaffirm its legitimacy in opposition to “modern practices for raising and educating children, in which there is not an ounce of discipline or the construction of character in the youngest” (comment 35).
This competent and eternally good family is opposed to an incompetent, soulless State:
The state has no soul, it is just a collection of politicians and institutions full of officials. It has no interest in Bulgarian children other than as submissive taxpayers. It is not interested in their happiness, nor is it interested in developing critical thinking, in a child’s personal development, etc [comment 67].
The sacred and timeless character of the family institution means that it not only precedes the state historically but is also morally superior, because “it gives and makes sense of any other form of human organization, including the ‘state’” (comment 142).
Underneath this discursive opposition between the state and the family lies deep distrust in the effectiveness and reliability of state institutions because of a long list of historical “failures” of the postsocialist Bulgarian state:
The state that sold Bulgaria—factories, airports, etc—through dubious privatization, concessions, and all that, is now trying to legally sell the interests of children through intervention in the family and in the upbringing of children [comment 49].
Distrust in state social services is supported by instances of non-effective implementation of social services, used as an argument against the whole system of social assistance to families. The state, not the family, is presented as exercising violence through child abuse in state institutions and foster families, removal of children from biological parents due to poverty, and social deprivation of children with special educational needs and of children with disabilities who cannot lead a full life. These extreme and multiple cases of child abuse by state institutions confirm, according to critics, concerns about the forms of state interference proposed by the Strategy.
In the case of the state, reference to the past is also present but is used in a negative way—as a threat of returning to the totalitarian past (socialism), when the state determined and controlled people’s private lives and seized upon the rights and responsibilities of parents, treating children as “state property.” According to the critics, the Strategy replicates the totalitarian atmosphere of omnipotent control and manipulation of parents in the form of “primitive etatism” (comment 102).
As well as the state with its totalitarian past, another crucial negative reference in the narrative of return to the family is the “Western family.” The opposition between “our,” “national,” “warm,” “soulful” family and the “foreign,” “cold,” “soulless” raising of children in Western countries is used to reinforce the worth of the Bulgarian family. Used as an example for the ways that Scandinavian people raise their children is Norway, described as a nation that finds it “easy for them to sacrifice their children” (comment 105) as shown by the practices and existence of the institution of Barnevernet (the child protection agency in Norway).
Discussion
Why did the anti-Strategy arguments manage to mobilize parents who demonstrated solidarity with their positions and organized marches? One of the feasible reasons is that ordinary citizens and parents voiced their own lived experiences, driven by their own emotions of fear, rage, and discontent. The emotional capacities of the public-speaking citizens serve as a signifier of the unity and strength of the people’s standpoints and put parents in morally superior positions compared to the rational but emotionally void knowledge of experts. In this vein, parenthood is converted into “an attractive political identity” 70 that articulates the social and economic difficulties of contemporary societies. The parents’ voices valorize the lived experiences of ordinary people and oppose their “innocent” knowledge and feelings against the rationalism and individualism of neoliberal NGO experts. According to Graff and Korolczuk, the attractiveness of parenthood as a political identity in contemporary times “results from the social, economic and cultural effects of neo-liberalism, a system that not only brings about precarity but also drastically devalues the human experience of familial relations and care.” 71 Parents’ mobilization against the Strategy reflects everyday concerns in parenting and childcare that are not addressed in the visionary document. The discordance between the actual difficulties faced by Bulgarian parents in child-raising, such as financial hardship, lack of good quality childcare provision, the stress on keeping a life–work balance, on one hand, and the predominant focus on children’s rights and professional expertise, on the other hand, consolidated resistance to the Strategy.
Within the citizens’ discourse as presented in this specific online public discussion, the narrative of return to “a traditional Bulgarian family” and “authentic family values” can be viewed as a reaction against the individualistic and universalistic ideas of childhood behind the Strategy and a way to express people’s longing for lost communities and disrupted social bonds under the conditions of neoliberal societies. The idea of the “traditional family,” with the presumed stability, togetherness, and closeness of its members serves as an alternative to the alien, depersonalized world of outside institutions and global elites. Bulgarian parents’ grassroots mobilization amplified the pitfalls of raising children under the pressure of neoliberal threats. 72 Citizens’ and parents’ voices reverberated with the real needs and protests of ordinary people opposing the narratives of economic and cultural colonization that pave “the way for demoralization, rampant individualism, the demise of family and community, which leaves common people at the mercy of global economic powers.” 73
Activist parents’ concerns about state control over the private life of families and their opposition to professional expertise as strategic to undermining parents’ authority place them in an ambivalent position. On one hand, they appeal for more pro-family policies that will economically and financially help families. On the other hand, they envision any type of help in cases of domestic violence or any other risks for children as a form of intrusion. Trying to protect parents’ rights against the omnipotent role of the state, parent activists ignore the conflicting interests of family members, especially in cases of child abuse and maltreatment. Politicizing parenthood turns out to be a winning card in the fight against Western Eurocentrism and its “gender ideologies.” 74
Conclusion
In this text, we have presented the main ideas of NSC opponents—conservative far-right NGOs and citizens who joined the discussion during the public debate on the Strategy in January 2019. The two sets of opponents’ discourses (that of the NGOs and that of the critical citizens) are intertwined, but still distinguishable, and we have tried to frame them as such. The conservative NGOs declared themselves to be defenders of Bulgarian children and families against their enemies—the liberal policies of the EU and the UN imposed by LGBT lobbies. In contrast, citizens rarely mention LGBT and gendering as a danger in their comments. The new philosophy on which the Strategy was based—its centering around the child and his or her rights—was seen by critically minded parents as a threat to both children themselves and to parents’ rights, as well as an unacceptable interference of the state in the private family space. The discussion revealed deep distrust of citizens and parents towards the state and its institutions, which was then amplified and instrumentalized by the far-right NGOs, which mobilized and organized a mass social movement against the Strategy.
An important place in this mobilization is held by the narrative of return—to roots, to traditional values, and to the traditional family of the pre-socialist past. They are imagined as the pillars of the Bulgarian nation and Bulgarianness, which are seen as threatened by global liberalism and the “diktat” of Brussels. The narrative of return entangles anti-genderism, traditionalism, and anti-liberalism, induced by global fundamentalist religious networks (such as the WCF and Agenda Europe), to which the main Bulgarian far-right NGOs gravitate, with Bulgarian ethnonationalism, in which the notion of the patriarchal Bulgarian family and traditional culture as pillars of the Bulgarian nation through the centuries is central. The cultural norms imagined as traditional are confronted with the ideas of children’s rights and the (implicit) new conceptualization of childhood that are at the core of the Strategy. Framing the Strategy and the envisaged cooperation of the state with the civil sector as a threat to Bulgarian families and children, the critics entirely reject cooperation with them and claim that the care of children is the task of parents and the family alone—the family consisting of mother and father, following the natural and Divine order.
The notion of a normal family as nuclear, consisting of a mother, father, and children, has been stabilized. The social differences of children and families related to social disadvantage, ethnicity, and religion are not problematized. In the end, the publication of the Strategy draft did not lead to a constructive debate through which to improve the Strategy, but to a clash between the two sides, expressed through mass protests and marches, that forced the proponents to withdraw it. It seems that this failure by the Strategy’s proponents has motivated extreme conservative NGOs to strengthen their network and to inspire further mobilizations of the anti-liberal social movement. Just a few months after the success of the anti-Strategy opposition, the Social Services Act became the occasion for another round of protests revolving around fears of empowerment of both social workers and NGOs. These protests led to the delayed enforcement of the Social Services Act, with serious consequences for the work of institutions and services in the social sphere.
