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Intensive Parenting and the Expansion of Parenting

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Parenting Culture Studies

Abstract

This chapter outlines an ‘intensification’ of parenting: the process whereby child-rearing has become a much more labour-intensive, demanding task. Drawing on work in the sociology of childhood, it is argued intensive parenting is premised on an acceptance of ‘infant determinism’, attributing lifelong outcomes to infant experience, highlighting children’s vulnerability, and thereby inflating the importance of the parental role. This cultural turn towards intensive parenting has not been uniformly experienced by all parents (race, gender, class, and geography all shape its internalization), but it remains an idealized standard against which many parents assess themselves. In this updated chapter, we give some examples of work which has used the concept of ‘intensified’ parenting since the original publication of Parenting Culture Studies in these varied locales.

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    Charlotte Faircloth

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Faircloth, C. (2023). Intensive Parenting and the Expansion of Parenting. In: Parenting Culture Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44156-1_2

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