What is the source of all this interest in parenting? I don’t recall my own parents reading books or attending workshops to learn about being better parents (and often it showed). Until Truby King published his book Feeding and Care of Baby almost a hundred years ago it wasn’t a significant public issue. Before then, wise men and thinkers generally had a great deal to say about the significance of childhood and upbringing. For instance, we frequently credit King Solomon with the statement, “Spare the rod and spoil the child” – but in fact you won’t find that exact phase in the Bible. Rather, it is an adaptation of several Proverbs, represented most clearly by “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.” (Proverbs 13:24). I think my father knew that one; punishment was the foundation of discipline for my generation, to the extent that this word ‘discipline’ is now often associated with those difficult experiences.
Plato said some important things, two and half thousand years ago. And then in the late 17th century, John Locke wrote about early childhood education, but his essay Some Thoughts Concerning Education was not at all a practical manual for parents. His concept of the mind as a blank slate (tabula rasa) to be inscribed upon leads us to the principles of behavioural conditioning, however. Jean Jacques Rousseau was idealising childhood in the late 18th century, and his view of the innate goodness of the child has had an important influence on modern attitudes towards childhood. But again, his writings are a philosophical rather than practical guide to daily parenting matters.
I believe that our preoccupation with parenting directly parallels the development of popular psychology; when Truby King was developing his practices, Freud and Jung were touring the United States, and suddenly the human psyche, its challenges and its development – its problems – were all the rage. And have continued to be… It was in the midst of this thrilling realisation that life is a problem that Benjamin Spock wrote Baby and Child Care; and over in England, Donald Winnicott was articulating his fruitful insights and very sensible suggestions. Since then, however, parents seem to have become increasingly uncertain about their roles and responsibilities. We could spend a lot of time considering the reasons for this… Suffice to say, some see it as a real problem, and while I agree that problems arise through the practised uncertainties and passing fads that now fill the spaces left by the demise of common sense, I’m convinced that we are wanting, needing to become conscious about what we are doing, how we go about it, and why. This is new territory, and the way through it is a creative pathway.
