Furedi (sociology, U. of Kent, UK) especially aims his anti-advice book at the worried American parent, where "anxiety regarding children's safety is at an unprecedented level." As evidence, he cites the new child-care industry that fosters paranoia and offers security, companies like Kinderview and Toddlerwatch that allow parents to constantly watch their children from their personal computer. Whereas parenting used to be about nurturing and socializing, now, writes Furedi, parenting has become burdensome overparenting, too much about keeping children safe from overblown harms. Furedi is a frequent guest on British television. The book is distributed by the Indpendent Publishers Group. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.
Although children are safer and healthier than ever before, Frank Furedi explains why parents feel paranoid and looks at how they can deal with insecurity fostered by experts and the media. He argues in favour of parents relying on their own judgement.
Now in its second edition, Parenting Culture Studies seeks to understand how parenting is taken as a particular mode of childrearing that reflects broader social trends. Ten years after the initial volume's groundbreaking publication, the authors once again closely examine how the main aspects of parenting have been established, explored, and critically evaluated. Chapters revisit phenomena such as intensive parenting and politics around parenting, as well as controversial issues including policing pregnant women's bodies and parental determinism. In addition to updates throughout the volume, including those addressing literature that has built from the book’s original publication, the book features a new third part discussing parents dealing with risk assessment, school closures, contradictory care arrangements, and vaccine hesitancy during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Whether members of the family are headed to school or work, smartphones accompany family members throughout the day. The growing sophistication of mobile communication has unleashed a proliferation of apps, channels, and platforms that link parents to their children and the key institutions in their lives. While parents may feel empowered by their ability to provide their children assistance with a click on their smartphone, they may also feel pressured and overwhelmed by this need to always be on call for their children. This book focuses on the phenomenon of transcendent parenting, where parents actively use technology to go beyond traditional, physical practices of parenting. In drawing on the experiences of intensely digitally-connected families in Singapore to tell a global story, Sun Sun Lim argues how transcendent parenting can embody and convey, intentionally or not, the parenting priorities in these households. Chapters outline how parents exploit mobile connectivity to transcend the physical distance between themselves and their children, the online and offline social interaction environments, and the timelessness of seemingly ceaseless parenting. Transcendent Parenting further explores how mobile communication allows parents to be more involved than ever in their children's lives, leaving readers to question whether or not parents have become too involved as a result. With its clear discussions of the effects of transcendent parenting on parents' wellbeing and children's personal development, Transcendent Parenting will appeal to a broad audience of readers, from scholars, educators and policy makers to parents and young people across the globe.
This book traces the growing influence of ‘neuroparenting’ in British policy and politics. Neuroparenting advocates claim that all parents require training, especially in how their baby’s brain develops. Taking issue with the claims that ‘the first years last forever’ and that infancy is a ‘critical period’ during which parents must strive ever harder to ‘stimulate’ their baby’s brain just to achieve normal development, the author offers a trenchant and incisive case against the experts who claim to know best and in favour of the privacy, intimacy and autonomy which makes family life worth living. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of Sociology, Family and Intimate Life, Cultural Studies, Neuroscience, Social Policy and Child Development, as well as individuals with an interest in family policy-making.
What Did You Worry About Today? Chances Are, You Didn't Need to . . . Paranoid Parents take heart: You're not alone in your sleepless nights. When surveyed by Paranoid Parents founder Christie Barnes, 75 percent of moms and dads said they worried about "everything" when it came to their kids. Things like: Is this really the right school? Will she get kidnapped at the mall? Are those car seats safe? Will he be bullied at camp? Is that splinter infected? Does he really have ADD or is he just hyper? Is she experimenting with drugs? In our fear-based culture that makes us over-buy, over-protect, and over-parent in an effort to keep our kids safe, Christie Barnes knows the truth: Most parents are wasting their time worrying about the wrong things. From years of research, Barnes will give parents a much-needed reality check, opening their eyes to the real dangers likely to befall their kids with simple, effective tips to prevent them from happening. She will help paranoid parents to come clean about their biggest fears, reveal the Top Ten real dangers as opposed to the Myth Makers, and offer realistic ways to safeguard kids at every stage without stealing their childhoods. By rallying against our biggest fears with the facts, the Paranoid Parents Guide will help moms and dads enjoy parenthood more, and allow their kids develop the resiliency, independence, and good decision-making skills that are essential—yet lacking—in today's society. So stop worrying about a shark attack . . . because your child is more likely to be injured by a shopping cart. Think that ice hockey is more dangerous than cheering? Think again. Is there ever an age when your kids are safer? (The answer is yes.) Are strangers the real enemy? (Actually, no.) How dangerous is the world we live in? As Barnes will prove, it's easier to enjoy your time with your children when you are prepared; not paranoid.
In a time of economic anxiety, fear of terrorism, and marital uncertainty, insecurity has become a big part of life for many American mothers. With bases of security far from guaranteed, mothers are often seeking something they can count on. In this beautifully written and accessible book, Ana Villalobos shows how mothers frequently rely on the one thing that seems sure to them: the mother-child relationship. Based on over one hundred interviews with and observations of mothers—single or married, but all experiencing varying forms of insecurity in their lives—Villalobos finds that mothers overwhelmingly expect the mothering relationship to "make it all better" for themselves and their children. But there is a price to pay for loading this single relationship with such high expectations. Using detailed case studies, Villalobos shows how women's Herculean attempts to create various kinds of security through mothering often backfire, thereby exhausting mothers, deflecting their focus from other possible sources of security, and creating more stress. That stress is further exacerbated by dominant ideals about "good" mothering—ideals that are fraught with societal pressures and expectations that reach well beyond what mothers can actually do for their children. Pointing to hopeful alternatives, Villalobos shows how more realistic expectations about motherhood lead remarkably to greater security in families by prompting mothers to cast broader security nets, making conditions less stressful and—just as significantly—bringing greater joy in mothering.
'Fear' in the twenty-first century has greater currency in western societies than ever before. Through scares ranging from cot death, juvenile crime, internet porn, asylum seekers, dirty bombs and avian flu, we are bombarded with messages about emerging risks. This book takes stock of a range of issues of 'fear' and presents new theoretical arguments and research findings that cover topics as diverse as the war on terror, the immigration crisis, stranger danger, global disease epidemics and sectarian violence. This book charts the association of fear discourses with particular spaces, times, social identities and sets of geopolitical relations. It examines the ways in which fear may be manufactured and manipulated for political purposes, sometimes becoming a tool of repression, and relates fear to political, economic and social marginalization at different scales. Furthermore, it highlights the importance and sometimes unpredictability of everyday lived experiences of fear - the many ways in which people recognize, make sense of and manage fear; the extent of resistance to fear; the relation of fear and hope in everyday life; and the role of emotions in galvanizing political and social action and change.
Today show's Michele Borba's cures for difficult childhood behaviors In this down-to-earth guide, parenting expert Michele Borba offers advice for dealing with children's difficult behavior and hot button issues including biting, temper tantrums, cheating, bad friends, inappropriate clothing, sex, drugs, peer pressure, and much more. Written for parents of kids age 3-13, this book offers easy-to-implement advice for the most important challenges parents face with kids from toddlers to tweens. Includes immediate solutions to the most common childhood problems and challenges Written by Today Show's resident parenting expert Michele Borba Offers clear step-by-step guidance for solving difficult childhood behaviors and family conflicts Contains a wealth of advice that is easy-to-follow and gets quick results Author has written outstanding parenting books including Building Moral Intelligence, No More Misbehavin', Don't Give Me that Attitude, and more Each of the 101 issues includes clear questions, specific step-by-step solutions, and advice that is age appropriate.
In his seminal text Society of Captives, Gresham Sykes discusses the general pains of imprisonment to which all prisoners are subjected: the deprivation of liberty, the deprivation of heterosexual relationships, and the deprivation of autonomy. Sykes recognised that different prisoners experience these pains differently, and as a result, are affected to a greater or lesser degree by their time inside. In this groundbreaking book, Natalie Mann investigates the idea that apart from the general pains of imprisonment discussed by Sykes, certain characteristics which certain prisoners hold makes them more likely to suffer from what she terms term 'added pains', i.e. the extra difficulties, deprivations and frustrations which exist within certain subsections of the prison population. The ageing prison population is a key example of a group who experience added pains of imprisonment. Their weaker appearance, their old-fashioned views and their less able bodies are all factors which result in them experiencing extra problems within prison. It is these added pains and the ageing men's experiences of them, which this book addresses. Framed within the theoretical perspective of structuration theory, but also drawing on aspects of Goffman's interactionism and Bourdieu's concept of habitus, this book offers a unique interpretation of research carried out with ageing prisoners and their prison officers and shows the reality of prison for those who are reaching the end of their life course.
