Abstract
The objective of this article is to identify and analyse discourses in Spain on intensive parenting in the context of the changes that have taken place in relations between parents and their children in contemporary societies. To do this, the author analyses the discourses from 16 in-depth interviews carried out with parents and from 14 focus groups of 11- and 12-year-old children. The article makes a distinction between two analytical dimensions of intensive parenting: intensive parenting for the future, which refers to the growing emphasis of parents on children’s cognitive development and education, and intensive parenting for the present, which refers to supervision and protection of children in the face of unexpected events affecting their safety and well-being. The article addresses how the perception of new risks and uncertainties strongly encourages different forms of control and greater individualism as families attempt to maximize the advantages of their own members, generating increasingly inegalitarian effects.
Social change and intensive parenting for the present and future
In the context of a state of widespread diffuse anxiety (Bauman, 2007), children have become a concrete cause for concern. Worries about childhood are increasing in intensity in two ways. On the one hand, the risks that affect children have become the object of strong protective actions by diverse social institutions (Parton, 2006). On the other hand, and as a contributing effect, children have attained a singular importance in the media as elements representing both ‘danger’ and ‘being in danger’ (Jenks, 1996), becoming, as a result, essential components of an ‘iconography of fear’ (Altheide, 2002: 172). Thus, perceptions about the probability of risks are magnified beyond their actual occurrence (Kelley, 1997; Pilcher, 1995; Tonucci, 1999) and have become a salient factor in decision-making in parenting (Scott, 1998).
Families are assuming growing responsibility for the control of risks in childhood. In fact, raising children, defined broadly, has become an inescapable and extraordinary responsibility (Dencik, 1992). Conscious of this responsibility, adults are subject to growing expectations about what ideal parenting involves, as aspirations which affect the pursuit of well-being and children’s happiness are added to those of a physical, moral and educational nature, implying greater challenges. Paradoxically, as greater control is exercised in order to maximize children’s present well-being and future opportunities, worries, uncertainty and anxiety about being able to carry out this effort are also increasing (Bonner, 1998). The nuclear family, as an essential sphere of reference for the care of children, emerges as a safe and trusted space. 1 In short, the parental role becomes more important in an institutional context in which demands on parents are increasing.
This transformation is linked to the extension of schooling (Ariès, 1987): better educated families base their reproductive strategies increasingly on educational capital; they adopt the disciplinary methods advocated by experts in socialization (Kellerhals and Montandon, 1991), as they recognize that the transmission of educational capital requires something beyond a system of control based on punishment (Martín Criado et al., 2000). Lareau (2003) refers to the differences in child-raising between professional classes (with high levels of education) and working classes, the former more oriented towards educational success – therefore, more oriented towards the achievement of future goals of social reproduction – through the development of skills and talents that are convertible into educational capital; and the latter, closer to the idea of ‘natural growth’ in the search for comfort and security for their children in their transition towards adulthood.
In recent years, there has been a proliferation of terms used to describe the tendency towards a high degree of control in parents’ child-rearing practices. ‘Intensive parenting’ (Hays, 1996), ‘hyper-parenting’ (Rosenfeld, 2001) and ‘hyper-vigilance’ (Katz, 2001) all refer to the increased importance given by parents to anticipating unforeseen events and avoiding risks that can affect children. The aim of this article is to identify the discourses of parents and children regarding parental control and the extent to which such discourses are linked to the notion of intensive parenting. The article also focuses on two dimensions of intensive parenting – the present and future. The ‘present’ dimension refers to those aspects susceptible to affecting the life of the child in an immediate manner, including concerns about the safety, physical and emotional well-being of the child and any other concerns that could possibly impact on the child (the protective sphere). The ‘future’ dimension refers to the totality of actions aimed at facilitating, in an anticipatory manner, the access of the child to adulthood (anticipatory sphere). In practice, these two dimensions are interconnected through parents’ aspirations to preserve spaces of safety, well-being and future opportunity for their children.
These are dimensions that are inherent aspects of parental action and which are in a process of growing intensification; thus, for example, some studies have shown that the amount of time that today’s parents spend with their children is greater than that of parents four decades ago, despite the massive incorporation of women into the labour market (Sayer et al., 2004). In addition, qualitatively speaking, parents’ relationships with their children have acquired a notable centrality, as the number of interactions in some way motivated by their children’s influence has grown (Hedegaard, 2009). Moreover, family responsibility expressed through different childcare and child-rearing practices now tends to extend beyond the traditional spaces and activities (Mari-Klose et al., 2010).
These two dimensions are connected through concepts such as ‘hyper-vigilance’ (Katz, 2001), in which health, safety and future opportunities are constituted as the final objectives of parental supervision. Hood-Williams (1990), in regard to this task of supervision, refers to the use of different forms of control, among others, over the ‘body’, ‘space’ and ‘time’, that could be intensifying in present-day societies. Regarding control over the ‘body’, the 45% increase in paediatric hospital visits in Spain from 1995 to 2004 (a period in which the population of paediatric age decreased by 8% [Benito Fernández, 2009]) is symptomatic of parents’ growing concerns regarding the health of their children. Control over space and the restriction of mobility in childhood are manifested through a growing institutionalization, in which the quantity of time that children spend supervised in institutions outside of school and removed from potential risks has increased (Trilla and Garcia, 2002).
In addition, supervision affects the temporal dimension. Controlling time in childhood is seen as a fundamental requirement for the completion of the life project intended for the child; this is most evident when childhood is seen as a competitive ‘race’ towards the future, as is revealed through the diverse measures of time control aimed in one way or another at taking advantage of children’s cognitive potential (Nadesan, 2002; Quirke, 2006). The growing concern for the intellectual development of children has led to new forms of control over time through the programming of activities that go beyond those involved in basic schooling (Elkind, 2001). As Lareau (2003) has argued, a movement from emphasis on the physiological towards the psychological and cognitive development of children has significantly increased the responsibilities and obligations of parents.
Although the concepts of ‘intensive parenting’ and ‘hyper-parenting’ have been used to describe similar phenomena, the latter tends to have a more critical connotation. In fact, hyper-parenting places an emphasis on the counterproductive effects of parents’ excessive tendencies to control in order to improve their children’s performance and to avoid unwanted risks, stemming from the demands imposed by a competitive society characterized by uncertainty (Nelson, 2010).
One unfortunate consequence of hyper-parenting is the restriction of children’s freedom in contemporary urban contexts. In addition, the gradual increase in extra-curricular activities has caused a decrease in the time children have available to play and, at the same time, a loss in their capacities for self-reflection, self-knowledge and creativity (Honoré, 2008). It is also argued that the increase in fears regarding children – as a catalysing factor of intensive parenting – has the effect of weakening trust, which increases the tendency towards the individualization of child-rearing (Furedi, 2002). A second effect and object of criticism is that intensive parenting favours the treatment of the child as an ‘object’ of the aspirations and desires of the parents (Qvortrup, 1992); in other words, it instrumentalizes childhood, as adults reinforce their own interests despite the apparent trend towards greater empathy and equity in relations with children (Gillis, 2003). Another important effect is related to its impact on the sphere of inequality. Gil Calvo (2005) points out that in industrial societies individual success was guaranteed by the totality of family strategies that financed and guided the upward mobility of the children, while today, in post-industrial societies, the increasing flexibility (precariousness) of labour markets is causing the devaluation of the symbolic and social capital of middle-class families in the transmission of social class. In other words, the more difficult it is to pass on status to children (particularly among the upper middle-class), the more extreme become the strategies to do so.
Method
In this study we analyse the discourses of parents and children about control in intra-family relations, focusing in particular on those discourses related to intensive parenting and its implications within the context of the changes that have taken place in contemporary Spain. Although the processes mentioned are typical of contemporary western societies, it is necessary to consider some of the distinctive aspects of the specific geographic sphere in which this empirical work has been carried out. In this country, the population with tertiary education has continued to grow in recent decades; in fact, Spain is among the OECD countries with the highest rates of growth in tertiary education (and upper secondary education) in the last 50 years (Ministerio de Educcación, 2011). This phenomenon, which is considered to be a factor explaining the tendency towards intensive parenting – and with implications for many other social spheres – has taken place in the context of a familist welfare regime (Esping-Andersen, 2010) that combines a tendency towards dependency on family relations – placing family obligations before personal goals (Mari-Klose et al., 2010) – with a sharp deficit in explicit family policies (Flaquer, 2004).
One of the main implications of this is the use of private strategies for the transition to adulthood instead of the mobilization of public resources. Families tend to play an important role in strategies for the (late) emancipation of Spanish youth, facilitating the savings necessary for investing in education or housing specifically through prolonging the period of co-habitation with parents (in 2006, 60.1% of Spanish youth between 15 and 29 years of age lived with their parents) (López and Lapa, 2010). The specific nature of what are considered adequate parenting models is another aspect in which this situation of dependency on family is evident. In regard to those models in which ‘successful’ parenting patterns tend to favour autonomy and individuality, the Spanish case (and that of other Mediterranean countries) is closer to the ‘permissive’ model than the ‘authoritarian’ one. According to García and Gracia (2010: 379), ‘severity/imposition contributes few favourable aspects to an optimal style of socialization in Spain, while acceptance/involvement is key’.
To meet the mentioned objectives of the study, 14 focus groups with boys and girls of 11 and 12 years of age were established and 16 semi-structured interviews with parents in urban and semi-urban contexts were carried out, according to ‘theoretical saturation’ criteria (Glaser and Strauss, 1967: 61). Through this process we were able to assess the participants’ understanding of parent–child relationships. The focus group technique was adapted to the special nature of the child population (Christensen and James, 2003), recognizing the need to counteract the adult researcher’s position of power. As a result, in contrast to the orthodoxy of conventional research with adults (Morgan, 1998), it was necessary to use pre-existing groups from schools. Thus, the selection of the ‘child’ participants was carried out in schools based on the following criteria: (1) socioeconomic level of the community where the school is located; (2) type of school (public, private or publicly subsidized private school); (3) type of geographic location (urban or semi-urban). These criteria were established taking into consideration the relative socioeconomic homogeneity of the school student body based on geographic location (Fernández Enguita, 2010). During these sessions the participants were presented with a total of five scenarios 2 using a combination of vignettes and brief narrations which presented hypothetical situations relevant to the issues being researched (Gómez Espino, 2012). The participants in the adult interviews were mothers and fathers of students enrolled in the chosen schools. In this case, the selection of participants was based on achieving a balance between men and women and the representation of different socioeconomic groups. Interviews were used because this is an instrument which permits the researcher to delve deeper into aspects that have been previously identified as important. Through access to the discourses or ideological positions of the participants we are able to draw certain conclusions of a general nature (Alonso, 1998) to get a better understanding of the phenomena being studied.
Discourses regarding intensive parenting
The perception of social change and emerging risks
A perception widely shared among the participants in this study is that relationships with children have changed, increasing in intensity and depth. Adults, and even children, value the improved level of attention and care given to children and the importance that families and institutions give to defending their interests; and they contrast this with the way things were in the past, reflected in aspects such as the limited supervision of children. Control over children (and families) is now considered a sign of progress.
Paradoxically, however, an essential aspect of this social change consists of the growing exposure of children to different risks. For this reason, although child-rearing is seen as a very positive experience for parents and as a source of personal fulfilment, it is also cause for considerable concern. ‘Fear’, ‘anguish’ or even ‘panic’ are common descriptions used by parents to transmit the emotions that raising children generates. In fact, it is accepted that parents’ relationships with their children develop within a climate of more or less constant fear in contemporary societies. The possibility of an undesirable event occurring (for example, related to health as mentioned in the story below) leads to the existence of feelings of anxiety alongside those of satisfaction: I think that for a child . . . panic. I don’t know if you have children but it is the greatest thing that can happen to you. My son, J. was really ill with gastroenteritis . . . and he couldn’t stand up . . . and he fell on me . . . I am there 24 hours: at their side, at their side. It’s very frightening. (Domingo, father, LM-U)
3
Fear of rape, of abuse . . . not that they didn’t exist before but they were minor worries. You say ‘My god, what kind of world are our children living in?’ You are afraid of a world that you don’t have any control over. It is a lot of different fears: drugs, unemployment, or low-paying jobs, violence in the streets, in the classroom, the dangers of the Internet, child pornography. (Luis, secondary school teacher, LM-SU)
Sometimes, concerns about safety become particularly pronounced; the mere possibility of something terrible occurring and destroying normal family life produces anguish. As a result, atypical and unfortunate events, such as the disappearance of a child, are commonly mentioned by adults to express these fears. Given the great unlikelihood of such events, it is striking how plausible their occurrence seems to be. Whether due to media coverage or for other reasons, it is clear that these events seem to have significant impact on parents’ perceptions of children’s safety, resulting in declining trust and greater restrictions on freedom (Darbyshire, 2007): Interviewer: Are you afraid of your daughter going out alone? Very much so, I’m afraid of someone kidnapping her. . . Maybe parents are afraid because of the horrible things we see on TV or we read in the paper. It’s like the whole society is worried about this because of the way the media get everybody worked up. (María, mother, LM-U) There have been a lot of kidnappings of children by perverts, all kinds of things. The way things are today you have to be careful. It’s only one in a million but it could happen to you. (Javier, father, LM-U)
The abduction of a child calls to mind a situation of extreme suffering for parents, given the gratuitousness, preventability and uncertainty accompanying such occurrences. Thus, there is strong empathy for parents who are victims of these events; yet simultaneously they can be subject to reproach because of their lack of diligence in carrying out their parental responsibilities. It would appear that abduction is an apt metaphor for the relationship between parents and their children in the contemporary world, as it is symbolic of the existence of risks embodied in a potential enemy – always ready to produce the most terrible harm – who must be kept at a distance, and who cannot be given the slightest opportunity to act.
Issues related to safety (theft, violence or threats) also raise concerns among children. As with adults, they realize that their daily lives are conditioned by these concerns and that it would not be prudent to act without recognizing their importance. ‘Danger signs’ (Gubrium, 2005) are communicated to them in their homes through stories often drawn from the news. In addition, stories are communicated among peers (Corsaro, 2005) – which was evident in the focus groups – that contribute to strengthening the perception of vulnerability, which in turn, encourages fears among adults, in a vicious circle: They don’t let me go out but besides, I don’t want to go out. I’m afraid to go out alone. (Clara, girl, private school, UM-U) Sometimes they exaggerate. When you go out they say: ‘Be careful crossing the street, so you don’t get hit by a car’. As if they assume we aren’t careful! (Julio, boy, public school, LM-U)
Given parents’ perceptions of reality, adopting multiple forms of control appears to be justified. In this sense, instilling fear in children (defined as being prudent) is deemed to be the price that must be paid if security is primary. In any case, how risks are defined is negotiable and circumstantial, based on their nature and perceptions regarding age and parental criteria regarding what is an acceptable level of freedom for children (Backett-Milburn and Hardin, 2004): I don’t like them having to be afraid but I am concerned that there are a lot who aren’t. (Carlota, mother, LM-U)
The references to a past that adults see as having been better for children become more frequent. In other words, discourses appear among adults that are based on nostalgia about the experience of parenting in the past, which is perceived as having been a better time, in particular in terms of the seriousness of dangers (a discourse of negative change). A different discursive logic accentuates the importance of the generational dimension. In this case, a certain degree of structural uncertainty in any adult generation regarding the younger generation is accepted, so that the uncertainty that the current period generates is not something new, although the elements of this uncertainty vary from those of the past (a discourse of generational change). As mentioned by the participants below, in the past parents also had persistent fears, but they were based on very different realities. Concretely, one fear from the past that stands out and contrasts with those of today was the fear of the breakdown of traditional practices: Given how life is . . . I didn’t want to have children. The truth is that it’s very scary. Them growing up scares me, when they get older. (Marta, mother, UM-U) I don’t think that previous generations are different. It’s just that the reasons why we are afraid have changed. I remember that my mother was afraid if I was a little bit late or if she would see me with a boy when I was 13 or 14 years old. That would be a scandal in the village. (Violeta, mother, UM-U) Fear related to your child’s freedom has always existed, generally speaking. I don’t think that has changed much, well, maybe in how it is expressed. (Fernando, counsellor, LM-SU)
Mechanisms for reducing uncertainties can be focused on the present dimension through efforts to control immediate safety and well-being, or focused on the future dimension through the anticipation and prevention of future risks with the aim of ensuring that children achieve adult aspirations. The following sections focus on these two dimensions.
Intensive parenting ‘for the present’
Intensive parenting focused on the present is particularly concerned with safety, and this is especially visible in urban environments where there is a clear tendency for children to be confined in the home. As we have said, abduction is the most extreme form of the different fears that exist regarding safety; however, there may be multiple sources of danger. The outside world is seen as an unsafe space, and the only safe alternative is for children to remain at home, in school or participate in supervised extra-curricular activities, which, along with other functions, provide control over space. This reality is talked about with a certain sense of guilt on the part of our adult participants, who realize that although these practices may be necessary, they are far from optimal: We’d rather have them stuck playing at home than being on the street with other children. (Luisa, mother, LM-U) [In reference to school and extra-curricular activities] I bring the kids to the school. They bring their toys and they play there . . . in this enclosed area they play football, hide-and-seek . . . I feel more comfortable here because the kids are under control, but they only want to play in the street. (Domingo, father, L-U) If you have a kid playing inside all day on the Playstation, when they go outside they feel strange. But if they participate in an after-school activity with their friends, they relate to others, and they are more communicative. (Javier, father, LM-U)
In certain middle-class environments, an alternative solution of ‘restricted’ streets is possible. Children’s aspirations can be satisfied if there is an opportunity to share a space (outside) with other children. This happens in ‘gated communities’ where outdoor space is restricted to those who live in the community. It is interesting to note that children in these communities define the ‘street’ as any outdoor space (including playgrounds and spaces closed off to public transit in their communities) and not in the more conventionally understood sense. In the case of children from more disadvantaged homes, access to the street is much more common despite the difficulties that must be faced there:
In my neighbourhood, there is a little round plaza that connects to another street and that’s where I play.
Yeah, there are places to play, like the parks, but it’s not like it used to be, when our parents went out to play, there were no cars and there were more open spaces and there weren’t so many dangerous things. (Private school, UM-U)
The street isn’t dangerous depending on where you go. There are areas that are fenced in and no one from outside can get in. (Carlos, boy, private school, UM-U)
In my neighbourhood you can’t play. You are playing and there are boys bothering you . . . throwing rocks . . . they hit us.
It’s terrible. It’s true, you can’t play. You bring a ball out and the gypsy kids come and they take it away from you.
You can’t play in my neighbourhood either, because all the drug addicts are there. . . (Public school, L-U)
The threat of physical abduction and other dangers of urban life (accidents, delinquency, drugs or simply bad relationships) are leading to a form of ‘abduction’ of children’s freedom in the name of protecting them from dangers. As Doherty (2005) has shown, in the United States, from 1981 to 1997, children’s free time declined by 12 hours per week and playtime by three hours per week. Furedi has highlighted the paradox of the enormous political and intellectual ferment regarding the rights of children ‘[coinciding] with the continuous erosion of the freedom that children have to play with each other’ (2002: 115). In one form or another, children’s freedom to be outside or to enjoy free time has been reduced.
However, intensive parenting for the present is not only concerned with purely physical protection; it also extends to other aspects of children’s lives such as the pursuit of emotional well-being. Parenting is oriented towards the satisfaction of more than just material demands, responding to children’s needs that emerge from emotional, psychological and even relational dimensions. In the expansion of the expectations regarding parenting, deficits in supervision (in the family or at school) tend to be perceived as a risk to the safety and well-being of children and, in a certain manner, as a threat to the very social order (Edwards, 2001). Different forms of control are considered necessary and unavoidable. In concrete, the intensification of family control is accepted as essential for children’s well-being and future development.
Intensive parenting ‘for the future’
Intensive parenting focused on the future has the aim of optimizing children’s future possibilities. The role of education is therefore crucial. However, parental action does not end with the delegation of education to schools; rather it also involves monitoring and helping children with their school work, which often implies a high level of involvement.
Among the professional middle class, this task acquires a great deal of importance. An issue that emerged in the discussion groups was establishing mechanisms for organizing children’s daily activities at home, in school and after school. One of the mechanisms referred to in the fieldwork is the use of day planners to help children better organize their time. While some see this type of instrument as a means to promote individual responsibility, others consider it excessive and even ridiculous:
He has a day planner at home that says ‘Wednesday: eat, drink . . .’.
Do you have a timetable?
I make up a timetable and my parents tell me that I have to be responsible and follow it. (Private school, UM-U)
Also among the adults we find discourses that are critical of what some consider to be the ‘over-programming’ of children’s lives. These discourses refer to the high degree of organization in children’s lives, which gives priority to learning over fun and recreation, without recognizing children’s natural need to play with no aim other than just having fun. The following participant explains it in this way: And at seven years old the child has activities all week. And if it is like that, when does she play, when does she relax? The parents say that the more they learn now, the better it is for them in the future. I think that a six or seven year old child needs to play. Don’t leave them alone, but you have to give them a little bit of freedom, a little bit of a break. (Javier, father, LM-U)
Concern about the possibility of their children failing in school and, as a consequence, falling victim to economic precariousness, exploitation or underemployment are, without a doubt, important motives for exercising intensive parenting (Gil Calvo, 2009). Parents are motivated by the fear that their children may lack opportunities that adequately prepare them for the future in societies which are increasingly based on merit, as measured by educational credentials. In other words, they are afraid that their children’s future freedom will be ‘abducted’, meaning the loss of the ability as adults to make choices and decisions which are linked to access to the profitable segments of the labour market: Aside from drugs, parents face a lot of uncertainty; dropping out of school is seen as failure with lifelong impact; you are afraid that if they don’t finish school. . . Before it was, ‘if they don’t want to study, they can work’. Now there is a different understanding: they see the possibility of poorly paid jobs. . . Parents are overly worried. (Luis, secondary school teacher, LM-SU) And my youngest, I’m afraid when she has to go to high school in a couple of years things could change. (Victoria, mother, LM-U)
To counter these uncertainties and as a way of managing the future, investing in both ‘cultural’ and ‘social’ capital becomes essential (defined respectively as the totality of acquired knowledge and as all of the contacts the individual has created throughout his or her life [Bourdieu, 2000]). Thus, children’s relationships with peers are an important aspect of intensive parenting for the future. Parents, conscious of the influence that their children’s peers have on them (Harris, 1999), feel it is important for their children to be well integrated in their relational environment. However, they allude to the concerns they have about the influence that friends can have and consider it essential that their children’s friends share similar values. In a certain way, a fear of the ‘abduction’ of the family identity appears. Parents are afraid that through peer influence, their children will disconnect from the traits of family identity internalized in their socialization; as a result, potential friendships become an important factor in parents’ attempts to achieve their aspirations for their children. Above all, when they believe that these relationships can have negative effects on their children’s future (in other words, another form of abducting their freedom), parents develop preventative strategies, something which is most often seen among the privileged classes: She has a group of very good friends but if I see something bad I try to separate her from it, but without her realizing it. (Luisa, mother, LM-U) Friends are an important influence . . . and of course they can be very negative. (Pablo, father, LM-SU) The group will be what dominates in her mind, no matter what I was able to do up until now. . . If these friends have similar characteristics as her, I mean in regard to education . . . I mean good people, that’s what I want. (Violeta, mother, UM-U)
In the focus groups with children, conflicting opinions regarding the pijo and cani subcultures emerge. 4 In a similar manner to the conflict between ‘ear’oles’ and ‘lads’ that Willis (1981) analyses in Learning to Labour, antithetical discourses appear between both subcultures. In particular, in the discourses of those from lower socioeconomic circles there is a rejection of the values, aesthetic and behaviour of those who are contemptuously identified as pijos. They are characterized as excessively formal in their dress and speech and as having a certain pro-adultism. This contrasts with the youth subculture that is here referred to as cani, the characteristics of which are seen as positive among these children who refer to the cocky, thuggish or even violent attitudes of this subculture.
In short, there is a high degree of importance attached to the values of these subcultures (both in a positive and negative sense) among the children interviewed. Although we find a higher level of support (or at least justification) for the cani subculture in less privileged circles, even in predominantly upper middle-class schools we find conflicting opinions. In other words, there is a certain porosity in the penetration of pro-pijo and pro-cani discourses among the different groups of children that goes beyond the class boundaries that tend to be associated with these subcultures. This adds another element to the climate of fear of symbolic contagion among middle-class parents who are trying to avoid, at all costs, any anticipatory symptoms of downward social mobility.
Actions aimed at protecting children from what are understood to be negative influences abound in processes of differentiation and to a certain extent, the segregation of school and extra-curricular spaces. Parents see their children’s potential friends as one of the key factors in academic success, and as a result, they tend to choose schools accordingly. Hence, they look for schools in which not only teachers but also peers can be a good influence on their children, based on their criteria regarding acceptable behaviour. Thus, the decision regarding which school their children will attend is influenced by the student body of the schools (associated with a neighbourhood, a lifestyle) particularly among parents that follow an intensive parenting model.
Discussion
In parent–child relations the present and future dimensions analysed are essential concerns. Present security and future opportunities constitute central elements that must be taken into consideration together. In addition, we understand that the intensification of strategies aimed at the elimination of risks (which affect both present and future) has important social consequences. From our perspective, these strategies are significant and affect multiple facets of society, included among them social inequality, as they favour a certain relational segregation, which, although not a new phenomenon and characteristic of the reproductive strategies of higher socioeconomic classes, could be intensifying as the levels of educational capital proliferate.
The effects of these tendencies on freedom have been mentioned. Abduction, one of the terrifying references of parental perceptions, acts with notable effectiveness, leading (along with other upsetting events) to a series of practices which limit children’s spheres of action. We have found abduction to be one of the central metaphors in discourses on parenting. Abduction is the most extreme form of the different fears related to safety (fear of the abduction of security). Beyond the fear of actual physical abduction we find the fear of other forms of abduction: fear of the abduction of future freedom, fear of the abduction of identity and fear of the abduction of present freedom. Fear of the abduction of children’s future freedom refers to parents’ concerns about the loss of opportunities for their children as adults, which are linked to educational attainment and type of upbringing. The fear of the abduction of identity refers to concerns that parents have regarding peer relationships. Abduction of present freedom refers to the children’s loss of freedom to move about and have free time.
Lastly, it should be mentioned that the analytical potential of the concept of intensive parenting is promising, particularly in relation to the social reality of countries such as Spain. Spanish society has undergone a profound transformation in recent decades in which familism is now accompanied by individualism and competiveness, an additional result of the rapid increase in educational levels. This familism has commonly been seen as a factor in social solidarity and well-being and has traditionally compensated for a relative lack of social and family policies. However, in these types of contexts, the actions of families responding to the perceived needs of their children through intensive parenting, trying to maximize their children’s advantages, can undermine social trust and have inegalitarian effects.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
I greatly appreciate the support of Eduardo Bericat, Xavier Coller, Enrique Marín Criado and Mercedes Camarero in reviewing this article as well as their suggestions, which I have included in the final text.
Funding
This study has been carried out under the framework of the Research and Development Project ‘Influence of social values on strategies for the distribution of time in Spanish households’ financed by the Instituto de la Mujer in Spain and the European Social Fund. Director: Mercedes Camarero Rioja.