Jennie Bristow’s Guide to Subversive Parenting
In her monthly column on the cutting-edge website spiked, Jennie Bristow sends the latest parenting fads and panics to the naughty step.
Rule 17: The kids don’t know it all
15 December 2008
In Britain’s ‘new vision’ for primary education, adults are reduced to the mere flatterers of techno-savvy kids. It’s a recipe for ignorance.
Rule 16: Strong families need more than money.
22 October 2008
With both the state and market proving unreliable, maybe families will look to each other for support in hard times.
Rule 15: Not everyone you know is a latent paedophile.
18 September 2008
The government’s Sarah’s Law won’t save children from abuse, but it will have a poisonous effect on community life.
Rule 14: Nobody needs a ‘Grandparents’ Charter’
9 September 2008
Grandparents don’t want a rulebook to manage their childcare responsibilities: they just want a life as well.
Rule 13: You don’t have to love your maternity leave
17 July 2008
Let’s admit it - maternity leave can be a chore
Rule 12: An ‘action plan’ won’t stop teen drinking
4 June 2008
The problem with teenage drinking is not their livers, but their lives: they’re sticking two blurred fingers up at today’s stifling adult culture.
Rule 11: Parents are allowed to get drunk on holiday
8 May 2008
The mad reaction to the story of a mum and dad who got paralytic in Portugal reveals a snobbish and unforgiving attitude towards parents today.
Rule 10: ‘School choice’ is a political cop-out
10 April 2008
The schizophrenic promotion/demonisation of parental choice in schooling leaves parents dejected, and kids no better educated.
Rule 9: There’s no ‘right time’ to have a baby
11 March 2008
Concerns about older mothers are based on moralism, not medicine.
Rule 8: There’s nothing wrong with ‘electronic babysitting’
22 January 2008
So why do supermums and officials think there is?
Rule 7: Have a merry Christmas
20 December 2007
Ignore the killjoys kicking up a fuss about pester power, toys-as-consumerism and secret paedophiles in Santa suits: Xmas with kids is fun.
Rule 6: There is no right way to ‘Bring Up Baby’
8 November 2007
The tantrums generated by the Channel 4 series Bringing Up Baby exposes our screamingly unhealthy obsession with parenting methods.
Rule 5: Having children can be good for you — and society
29 August 2007
In No Kids, Corinne Maier taps into Western culture’s guilty secret: rhetorically it celebrates kids; actually it fears and dislikes them.
Rule 4: Get real about nappies (and dustbins)
23 July 2007
Ignore the worthy exhortations to use ‘real nappies’ and wash clothes in cold water.
Rule 3: Pregnancy does not damage your child
29 May 2007
Picking apart the hectoring advice that is dished out to pregnant women about everything from food and booze to smoking and hair-dye.
Rule 2: It’s not All About You
11 April 2007
What’s behind the proliferation of mummy identities?
Rule 1: You and your child have the same interests
19 March 2007
The cult of child-centredness misses the point of family relationships.
Other parenting-related writing and broadcasting by and featuring Jennie Bristow.
Social censorship
British Journal of Photography, 10 December 2008Fears over paedophilia have prompted new rules governing child photography, but more worrying is the social censorship that’s taking hold.
A depressingly narrow debate
Abortion Review, 5 December 2008
The ‘yes it does / no it doesn’t’ reaction to claims that abortion damages mental health distracts from the more useful and difficult questions about women’s experience.
Down’s Syndrome, live births, and statistics
Abortion Review, 26 November 2008
The claim that a more ‘caring’ Britain has led to an increase in births of babies with Down’s is just wrong. So why did it receive so much coverage?
A Case of Need
Abortion Review, 18 November 2008
What the writer Michael Crichton had to say about abortion.
‘Baby P’: don’t turn this tragedy into a policy
spiked, 13 November 2008
The haunting parallels between the cases of Baby P and Victoria Climbie should remind us what the government should not do in response.
Free fetal DNA testing: Implications for the abortion debate
Abortion Review, 6 November 2008
Jennie Bristow examines the collision of scientific advances in prenatal testing with prejudices about abortion for fetal abnormality.
Why parents should break the rules.
Times Online, 22 October 2008
There is more to a happy family life than having children who know how to cook a sea-bass.
Personal is Political.
Radio 4 Woman’s Hour, 2 September 2008.
As politicians tell us to tighten our belts during the credit crisis, and reduce our waistlines, we hear a lot about the ‘nanny state’. And with conflicting views on women’s ability to have children and hold down a job, there is increased attention on ‘work-life balance’. So does this blurring between the public and the private spheres represent a victory for that generation of feminists who argued that the personal is political? Jenni discusses this with the writers Joan Smith, Jennie Bristow and Anthony Howard.
Why we need a parents’ liberation movement.
spiked, 27 June 2008
In this new essay Jennie Bristow traces the origin of the ‘woman question’, victim feminism, and the therapeutic state.
Cherie’s memoirs ‘are not awful’ shock!
spiked, 30 May 2008
Yes, the 400-page tome is full of gynaecological goo and bimbo-style twittering about getting her hair done. Yet Speaking for Myself is also a surprisingly endearing narrative on the incoherence of New Labour.
Abortion: 24 reasons to defend 24 weeks.
spiked, 15 May 2008
A Tory MP has unveiled 20 reasons why the time limit for abortion should be lowered to 20 weeks. Here are 24 reasons why it should stay as it is.
Bringing Up Britain.
BBC Radio Four, 2 April 2008
Mariella Frostrup hosts a debate about parenting with families, experts and policy-makers. As bad parenting is blamed for the ills of society, how are we raising the next generation?
Learning how to be a good parent.
BBC News, 20 November 2007
Report on the launch of the UK government’s National Parenting Academy.
After Chick Lit, welcome to ‘baby-sick lit’.
spiked, 26 October 2007
The latest publishing craze – rapid-consumption novels about women trying to conceive – is not quite the literary cup of hot chocolate that was provided by Bridget Jones and the other zany singletons of the Chick Lit era.
Mums of the world unite.
Sunday Herald, 21 October 2007
... we have nothing to lose by resisting government attempts to treat us like idiots. By Jennie Bristow.
This is not eugenics — it is one mum’s tough decision.
spiked, 9 October 2007
The slating of a British mother for asking doctors to give her disabled daughter a hysterectomy exposes today’s deep distrust of parents.
Child obesity.
Radio Four Woman’s Hour, 19 July 2007
Consultant Paediatrician, Dr Penny Gibson and writer Jennie Bristow join Miriam to disucuss government policy for preventing child obesity. Do parents want the government to get so involved?
Scarier than Thatcher the milk snatcher.
spiked, 8 May 2007
From ‘fetal ASBOs’ to calorie-counting on the curriculum: the Blairites intervened in family life in ways the Tories never dreamed of.
Why I won’t be joining the ‘Bad Mothers Club’.
spiked, 28 December 2006
The latest literary genre celebrates stressful, even bad, motherhood as an identity.
Get the inspectors out of our nurseries.
spiked, 11 October 2006
Government regulation of childcare is making life difficult for parents, children and carers.
Down with the fertility police.
spiked, 31 August 2006
Proposals that women who are too fat, too thin or over 40 should be denied IVF are draconian attempts to define what is a ‘good parent’.
Children: over-surveilled, under-protected.
spiked, 20 July 2006
A recent conference in London highlighted the dangers of the government’s insidious monitoring of our children’s lives.
I want my epidural!
spiked, 23 May 2006
Why this heavily pregnant writer doesn’t buy the idea that natural childbirth is best.
Are we addicted to love?
spiked, 28 March 2006
Theories of intimate relationships in the modern world view passionate love as a problem to be managed.
Unmarried couples and legal rights.
BBC Radio Four Woman’s Hour, 15 March 2006
Now that gay couples have the right to register a civil partnership – conferring the same legal rights as a marriage - are unmarried couples being discriminated against under the law? To discuss, Woman’s Hour is joined by Anne Barlow, Professor of Family Law and Policy at the University of Exeter, and by Jennie Bristow, Commissioning Editor of spiked and author of Marriage and Commitment in Singleton Society.
The suspicious characters in the Department for Education.
spiked, 17 January 2006
Teacher vetting scandals are a crisis of the government’s own making.
A lesson in conformity for parents.
spiked, 10 January 2006
Forget ‘respect’: the UK government’s National Parenting Academy is based on contempt for mums and dads everywhere.
A Sure Start for the therapeutic state.
spiked, 22 September 2005
It’s official: New Labour’s scheme for deprived children does nothing for the under-fives. But then the government has always been more bothered about the parents
Parents: we are not the law.
spiked, 5 September 2005
The government’s attempts to turn parents into policemen are deeply dysfunctional.
Baby bribes.
spiked, 26 May 2004
If people don’t want children, a government grant is unlikely to change their mind.
Not in front of the parents.
spiked, 19 May 2004
The 14-year-old’s ‘secret’ abortion shows that professionals now see Mum and Dad as the problem.
Breastfeeding Awareness Week.
BBC Radio Four Woman’s Hour, 9 May 2005
Jenni Murray speaks to Belinda Phipps, the Chief Executive of the National Childbirth Trust, and Jennie Bristow, commissioning editor of the online publication spiked, about why people choose bottle feeding and whether the pressure on new mums to breastfeed is counter-productive.
Regulating reproductive technology - less is more
spiked, 31 March 2005
A UK government committee has concluded that more trust should be put in parents, doctors and scientists. And this is an ‘extreme libertarian’ position?
What future for the family?
spiked, 17 November 2004
Behind the ‘mommy wars’ and the new politics of the family.
Women: are we equal now?
And if so, so what? spiked, 21 May 2004
Boys and emotional literacy.
BBC Radio Four Woman’s Hour, 25 February 2004
Children’s author and former teacher Pete Johnson joins Jenni Murray and journalist Jennie Bristow to discuss whether embedding emotional literacy in the curriculum can help both sexes to flourish.
Fertility symbols
spiked, 27 August 2003
The discussion about IVF funding in the UK raises broader concerns about our attitudes towards sex, pregnancy and parenthood.
Suspicious policy
spiked, 22 May 2003
Why is Downing Street so bothered about whether people trust each other?
Down with social capitalism
spiked, 6 February 2003
Social capital is a philosophy for those who have given up on changing the world. No wonder policymakers like it so much.
Playpen world.
New Statesman, 17 December 2001
Jennie Bristow on the cult of mummy lit.
Girls just wanna have fun.
New Statesman, 24 September 2001
Why do writers such as Jenny Colgan, Jane Green and Lisa Jewell invite such contempt - and such huge sales?
Chick Lit to Smith Lit
spiked, 8 March 2001
The worst thing that can happen to young female authors is that they are taken so damn seriously.
Featured articles
Babywearers of the world, unite!spiked, 24 November 2008
Why did moms who carry their babies in slings or wraps react so badly to a less-than-reverential ad? By Nancy McDermott.
Schools are not social services says teachers’ union
The Times (London), 18 November 2008
The largest teaching union has warned against schools being used as surrogate social services after Ed Balls, the Children’s Secretary, called on teachers to do more to prevent child abuse in the home.
I may be paranoid, but they are watching us
The Times (London), 24 October 2008
The State’s growing mania for gathering information is turning us into a nation of suspects and informers. By Camilla Cavendish.
How American motherhood ruined my life
The Times (London), 18 October 2008
We’ve been set impossibly high standards when it comes to raising children. What’s wrong with benign British neglect? By Janice Turner.
Just give them grit
The Sunday Times, 12 October 2008
Health and safety concerns have led to children being wrapped in cotton wool. By Rachel Johnson.
The Government wrongly considers children as obese
Daily Telegraph, 18 September 2008
Read the Daily Telegraph blog by Jane Sandeman, convenor of the Parents’ Forum.
The end of playtime?
Independent, 4 August 2008
Playtime is over for children, with up to half of youngsters banned from climbing trees, playing conkers or riding their bikes by over-protective parents who are terrified that they might get hurt.
The state-sanctioned bullying of fat kids
spiked, 30 July 2008
Why is Britain opening so many ‘fat camps’? The evidence suggests they don’t work, and only make overweight children feel isolated and ashamed. By Patrick Basham and John Luik.
Teachers: leave those kids’ emotions alone
Daily Telegraph, 29 July 2008
Jane Sandeman, convenor of the Institute of Ideas Parents’ Forum, writing on the ‘Ways and Means’ blog.
Authors unite against drive for toddler literacy
The Times (London), 24 July 2008
A powerful lobby of leading authors and educationists accuses the Government of setting children up for failure.
Baby Bust!
Reason magazine, July 2008
The world is panicking over birthrates. Again. By Kerry Howley.
Why you shouldn’t let your kids rule your life
Sunday Times (London), 29 June 2008
You’ve given up work to focus on your kids, but what about your mind? Katie Roiphe voices her concerns about modern child-centric parenting.
The high cost of invasive parenting advice
spiked, 27 June 2008
A striking new book argues that ‘invasive parenting’, ‘hyper parenting’ and even ‘death-grip parenting’ are turning out a nation of wimps. Is it true – and how did it happen? By Nancy McDermott
Gone, Baby, Gone: who’s fit to be a parent?
spiked, 12 June 2008
With echoes of recent high-profile child abductions, Ben Affleck’s crime drama poses a very modern moral dilemma. By Rob Lyons.
Emphasis on emotions is creating ‘can’t do’ students
The Times (London), 12 June 2008
Schools and universities are producing a generation of “can’t do” students, who are encouraged to talk about their emotions at the expense of exploring ideas or acquiring knowledge, academics claimed yesterday.
The Kindergarchy
The Weekly Standard, 6 June 2008
In America we are currently living in a Kindergarchy, under rule by children. By Joseph Epstein.
A government u-turn we should welcome
spiked, 5 June 2008
It was a mad idea to make businesses that employ under-16 paperboys or interns submit to vetting - thank God it’s been scrapped. By Josie Appleton.
Families struggle to afford formal childcare
The Times (London), 30 May 2008
Government study finds that Gordon Brown’s childcare strategy has failed, with families relying on family and friends.
The Great American Baby Bottle Scare
spiked, 27 May 2008
Cynical official scaremongering about a harmless plastic in baby bottles has panicked moms and dads throughout America and Canada. By Nancy McDermott.
Schools in revolt over under-5s curriculum
The Times (London), 26 May 2008
A powerful coalition of England’s leading independent schools is demanding that the Government scale back its new national curriculum for the under-fives, claiming that it violates parents’ human rights by denying them the freedom to choose how they educate their children.
High price to pay for youth’s folly
The Times (London), 19 May 2008
Images of dying young people don’t change behaviour; and leave behind an undignified memory. By Carol Sarler.
‘Paedophile scares are always driven by the elite’
spiked, 19 May 2008
As the Jersey children’s home ‘bone’ turns out to be a piece of coconut, Richard Webster tells spiked the case reveals much about moral panics. By Brendan O’Neill.
MPs must stay out of family planning
Sunday Times (London), 18 May 2008
Antediluvian lobbyists and their press allies shriek ‘hybrid’ and ‘Frankenstein’ yet nobody is planning to create monsters. By Simon Jenkins.
Bouncy castles: a dangerous ruling
The Times (London), 13 May 2008
Our society is trying desperately to outlaw the notion of an accident. But that’s wrong. By Mick Hume.
Is there a Josef Fritzl on your street?
spiked, 1 May 2008
The heinous cellar-incest crime is being turned into a metaphor for the dangers of family life. By Brendan O’Neill.
‘I’ve been labelled the world’s worst mom’
spiked, 30 April 2008
New York Sun columnist Lenore Skenazy tells spiked about the barrage of abuse she got for letting her nine-year-old ride the subway alone. By Nancy McDermott.
Pupils shun healthy diet for junk food runs
The Times (London), 28 April 2008
Students are operating a black-market trade in food banned in schools in a backlash against Jamie Oliver’s campaign.
Can we hector parents? Yes we can!
spiked, 28 April 2008
By making parental attitudes central to his vision for education, Barack Obama is blaming moms and dads for the US State’s school failures. By Nancy McDermott.
Interesting journal articles
The Making of Modern Motherhood: Memories, Representations, Practices
Rachel Thomson and Mary Jane Kehily with Lucy Hadfield and Sue Sharpe. Open University, July 2008
‘“I Would Want to Give My Child, Like, Everything in the World”: How Issues of Motherhood Influence Women Who Have Abortions’. By Rachel K. Jones, Lori F. Frohwirth, and Ann M. Moore. Guttmacher Institute, New York. Journal of Family Issues, Vol. 29, No. 1, 79-99 (2008) January 1, 2008
The Overpraised American: Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism revisited. By Christine Rosen. Policy Review, October-November 2005
Family and Intimate Relationships: A Review of the Sociological Research. By Val Gillies, Families & Social Capital ESRC Research Group, South Bank University. 2003.
Relevant policy documents
Families in Britain: an evidence paper
Department for Children, Schools and Families, December 2008
Kids in the Middle: An Agony Aunt’s guide for parting parents and their children
Department for Children, Schools and Families, December 2008
The Play Strategy
Department for Children, Schools and Families, December 2008
Managing Risk in Play Provision: Implementation Guide
Department for Children, Schools and Families, December 2008
The Impact of Parental Involvement on Children’s Education
Department for Children, Schools and Families, November 2008
Youth Alcohol Action Plan
Department for Children, Schools and Families; The Home Office; Department of Health. June 2008.
The Child Health Promotion Programme: Pregnancy and the first five years of life
Department of Health, April 2008
Safer Children in a Digital World: the report of the Byron Review.
Department for children, schools and families, March 2008.
The Children’s Plan
Department for children, schools and families, December 2007.
Building on progress: Families
Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, May 2007
Every Parent Matters: Helping You Help Your Child
Department for Children, Schools and Families, March 2007
The Early Years Foundation Stage
Department for Children, Schools and Families, 2007
The state of the nation report: Fractured Families
Centre for Social Justice, December 2006
Breakdown Britain: Interim report on the state of the nation
Social Justice Policy Group, December 2006
Public events
Books worth reading
Paranoid Parenting: Why Ignoring the Experts May Be Best for Your Child, by Frank Furedi.
New Edition: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd, October 2008
Don’t Touch!: The Educational Story of a Panic, by Heather Piper and Ian Stronach.
Routledge 2008
Dream Babies: Childcare advice from John Locke to Gina Ford, by Christina Hardyment
Frances Lincoln Publishers 2007
Mass Hysteria: Medicine, Culture, and Mothers’ Bodies, by Rebecca Kukla
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005
No Two Alike: Human Nature and Human Individuality, by Judith Rich Harris.
W. W. Norton and Co., 2007
Reports and pamphlets
The Evolution of the Family in Europe 2008.
Institute for Family Policy, May 2008
This survey of life in the 27 European Union countries claims to chart the collapse of family life, with one marital breakdown and one abortion in Europe almost every 30 seconds.
No Fear: Growing up in a risk averse society
By Tim Gill. Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 2007
The Good Childhood Enquiry.
The Children’s Society, 2007
Child poverty in perspective: An overview of child well-being in rich countries
Unicef 2007
The shopping generation
By Ed Mayo. National Consumer Council, July 2005
Links
Blogs
Times Alphamummy Blog
Mainstream Parenting Resources
Free Range Kids
Bad Mothers’ Club
Social networking sites
Mumsnet
Netmums
Campaign sites
Manifesto Club Campaign Against Vetting
Campaign for Adventure
about us
Parents With Attitude is a website for parents who want to engage in an adult debate about the issues affecting their lives, and the world that they live in.
It is edited by the journalist Jennie Bristow, author of the spiked Guide to Subversive Parenting and a mother of two preschoolers.
contact us
If you spot any particularly good (or bad) parenting-related news stories, please send them to us to add to the blog. Contact:
If you would like to discuss any of the issues you see on the website, join our online Parents’ Forum.
parents’ forum
This discussion forum is inspired by the work of the Institute of Ideas Parents’ Forum, a group of feisty mums and dads who regularly meet in London to discuss, not potty training or weaning techniques, but developments in parenting policy and the latest media panics.
The online parents’ forum is open to anybody wanting to post their views about something going on in the news, something they’ve read on Parents With Attitude, or something they feel strongly about and want to discuss with others.
Join in here.
|
