Wyrafinowane projekty, dawniej znane pod nazwą dzieci
Sophisticated Projects Once Known as Children

Author(s): Mariola Bieńko
Subject(s): Sociology
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: parent-child relationship; parenting culture; intensive parenting; perfect parent; perfect child
Summary/Abstract: Over just a couple of generations, parents have greatly increased the amount of time, attention, and money that they are putting into raising children. Nowadays, childhood is understood as a period of life with its own values and rights. Rather than being a commodity, children are now to a greater extent thought of as sacred, priceless, and irreplaceable. Intensive parenting – constant teaching and monitoring of children – has been the norm for parents since the 1990s in the Western culture (Faircloth, Hoffman, Layne 2013; Janning 2019). The result came in the form of a parenting style that is „child-centered, expert-guided, emotionally absorbing, labour intensive and financially expensive” (Hays 1996: 8). This paper examines the significance of culturally specific parenting practices, ‘parenting’ as a subject of professional expertise, and parenting as an activity through which adults are increasingly expected to become personally fulfilled. I focus on the relationship between intimate family life and broader cultural trends, and the ways in which the moral and commercialised context for parenting are negotiated and sustained in a post-industrial society.

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