Parenting news: archive
4 January 2012
A fresh-faced look at growing old
In Never Say Die, Susan Jacoby elbows aside old prejudices about ageing and the ‘illderly’ and asks instead how society can sensibly cope with having lots of older people. Review by Jennie Bristow.
17 September 2011
Dump the neurotrash and leave parents alone, say academics
If 'the science says' that children's brains are hardwired by the age of three, should we automatically believe this claim? Not according to speakers at an academic conference at the University of Kent this week. Rather, we should see policymakers' obsession with neuroscience as a rather pathetic and pernicious excuse for intervening in toddlers' lives, and telling parents what to do. Jennie Bristow reports.
17 August 2011
London riots: Why politicians shouldn’t reach for the parenting classes
By Jennie Bristow.
18 July 2011
Lib-Con family policy: Maggie meets Mary Poppins
The coalition’s family policy is an unholy marriage of Thatcher-style traditional moralism and New Labour-style therapeutic interventionism. By Jennie Bristow.
3 June 2011
The new parenting catfight: Tiger Moms vs Fun Slobs
In the obsession with the relationship between parenting practices and children’s achievements, the very idea of the parent undergoes a terrible metamorphosis. By Jennie Bristow.
1 April 2011
A novel approach to domestic drudgery
Christina Hopkinson’s sparkly new novel has been read as a privileged mum’s moan about cleaning. In fact it raises more than a few awkward questions about domestic drudgery. By Jennie Bristow.
11 February 2011
How the vetting frenzy alienates adults from kids
The state’s vetting of adults working with children suggests it no longer trusts us to use our judgement to socialise the next generation. By Jennie Bristow.
20 January 2011
An open letter to Nick Clegg
You say you want to move away from New Labour’s hectoring of parents. So why all the child-targeted ‘early interventionism’? By Jennie Bristow.
6 October 2010
Bringing up baby is not an exact science
I’m not a neuroscientist or a psychologist, but I’m going to trust my gut feeling that most ‘parenting science’ is utter rubbish. By Jennie Bristow.
27 September 2010
A slap in the face to modern niceties
Jennie Bristow reviews Christos Tsiolkas’s controversial Booker Prize nominee, The Slap.
21 July 2010
Big Society: there’s more to politics than the PTA
There are some good instincts behind the Lib-Cons' BS agenda. But it risks reducing politics to the level of community cakebaking. By Jennie Bristow.
24 June 2010
Sure Start: a fancy new way to police the family
Sure Start’s main achievement has been to transform the social problem of child poverty into an individual problem of poor parenting. By Jennie Bristow.
30 April 2010
The trouble with family policy
Because it distrusts families and also doubts the ability of the state simply to take over the job of parenting, New Labour has given birth to ‘professionalised parenting’ – with disastrous consequences for family life. By Jennie Bristow.
28 April 2010
Is it OK to leave your baby to cry?
Yes, says Jennie Bristow.
17 April 2010
The ‘Mumsnet election’ doesn’t get my vote
As a mother of young children, I suppose I should feel vaguely excited – if not absurdly flattered – by the looming ‘Mumsnet election’. But the thought of it does as much for me as changing a sloppy, honking nappy.
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