Sociologist Frank Furedi has famously said that "Parenting is not difficult. Nuclear physics is difficult".[i] Others would disagree with Furedi. Until recently, one of these would have been Richard Handl, a 31-year-old man from Angelholm, Sweden, who did not think that nuclear physics was difficult at all. He attempted to build a device to split atoms in the kitchen of his own apartment.[ii]
Handl easily bought, by mail order, the radioactive isotope tritium and procured some of the synthetic radioactive element americium by dismantling home smoke detectors. In an interview following his efforts becoming public, Handl said: ‘The whole thing exploded up in the air … It's probably pretty hard to get it to work’. Asked about the future of his investigations after his equipment was confiscated by police, he promised ‘Now I'll keep it at the theoretical level." Because he found it very easy to acquire the components needed for a small nuclear reactor, it seems Richard Handl was led to believe the process would be simple. It could be argued that, because many people find it easy to conceive a child, they assume the activities required to be an effective parent are also easy.
Is parenting difficult? Do parents need more formal education to learn it? Or better networks of support which help them fill the gaps of knowledge and skills? Or is it all just common sense? In the present social and economic circumstances for families in the UK, most parents do not see this job as easy. They may well find large parts of it enjoyable, stimulating and fulfilling, but also tiring, bewildering and expensive in either time or money or both. A 2010 survey asking ‘what mums need?’ found that ‘All parents want early support, that is easy to access and near to home as problems develop. Getting help early can mean the difference between resolving a problem such as a child sleeping and eating which if left unresolved can lead to a crisis in confidence and even longer term depression.[iii]Immediately after the birth of a baby, gifts and congratulations pour in and, briefly, the family receives attention from health professionals and others. The clouds of glory can turn quickly to a chilly climate of fatigue, anxiety and isolation.[iv]
Above all, the vigorous promotion of ‘choice’ by recent governments of various political shades has added weight to the traditional burden of parental responsibility by a continuing series of decisions needing to be made about healthcare during pregnancy and birth, infant feeding, childcare, early years education and so on. Friends, neighbours and the ever-present media may offer information and advice but are also often ready to criticise the decisions made and pile feelings of guilt on top of the emotional peaks and troughs already charted during early parenting.
NCT, the UK’s largest charity for parents, aims to offer support and information to parents – but not direct advice. We want to make sure parents (and those intending to be parents) have access to a range of high-quality information, are given the opportunity to discuss issues with both peers and trained supporters, and are encouraged to take the time to make their own decisions. Our vision is of parents who are not just informed and supported but confident to go forward after the early days, find their own reliable sources of help and make decisions they feel sure about.
The principles of good practice in preparing for the birth and in the bringing up of a child have not greatly changed over recent years. What has changed is the perceived amount of choice, the extended discussions of what are the best choices - carried out in a blaze of media limelight – and the immense commercial pressures to spend money on goods and services for young children.[v] The range of options available for those who can afford them is indeed dazzling, but there is no evidence that such material wealth promotes wellbeing.[vi] At the other end of the socio-economic spectrum, parents on a low income are left even more disappointed and frustrated by not being able to buy advertised goods for their children, and may be prevented by their circumstances from accessing the knowledge that tells them the purchases are neither necessary nor helpful. From manufactured baby foods to complex electronic toys, it’s an extra battle that parents don’t need - to resist the promotion and the pressure.
NCT, through its huge community of contacts among new parents across the UK, is overwhelmingly aware of the stresses put on parents from pregnancy onward. Our aims are to help parents become the experts in parenting – at least for their own family - and to believe in their own value and their own power. Our antenatal preparation for parents-to-be includes not only teaching about the processes of pregnancy and birth, but a strong focus on relationships, information-gathering, decision-making, negotiation and other areas and skills that are all part of life, not just birth. The ‘transition to parenthood’ is a stage of life that the majority of adults go through, as they go through childhood, the teenage years, middle-age and retirement. All of these require learning and adjustment, as social and economic circumstances change. Those who accept they may need to learn, both formally and from others’ experience, are usually better placed to benefit from the new phase of life and use their new skills positively.
When parents connect with NCT classes or courses, or get involved with one of our branches of volunteers, it is no surprise to us that they often go on from there to take up other opportunities for contributing to community or society. For many NCT members, it is the first voluntary work they have ever done when they help host a tea-party or run a nearly-new sale. The understanding that they have ‘qualified’ to do this work simply by becoming a parent helps to add to their self-esteem and brings home the fact that their experiences are of interest and of help to others.
This charity is currently preparing a major drive to raise the profile of parenthood as a positive stage of life and one where investment – of money, time and effort – pays back dividends not only through the increased well-being of the children who are raised by confident parents, but through the later life of the parents themselves who have found the experience of creating a family stimulating and fulfilling. We urge policy-makers to listen to these voices and learn how a higher value placed on parenthood in all its aspects will benefit not only families but the whole of society. NCT will welcome partners in this work and a collaborative initiative, with a joint strategy, to strengthen and widen the dissemination.
We are only too aware of the current debate over the strength of the evidence underpinning the importance of the parent-child bond in the early years. As a charity, we have also contributed to the several independent reviews on early-years action carried out on behalf of the government, such as that by Graham Allen MP. We don’t particularly want to join in a skirmish that is making use of the bluntest of weapons and apparently fought between the ‘parent-bashers’ and the ‘neuro-nonsensers’. In our long experience of supporting parents, it has been reinforced over and again that families work out their approaches in different ways according to their inclinations and their circumstances. Almost invariably the children who flourish best are those whose parents have been helped to find the information they want and given support for their own plans, neither left to fend for themselves nor put on the naughty step by the nanny state.
NCT acknowledges the adventurous spirit of Richard Handl, the Swedish home-nuclear-physicist, and we do know that parenting is not rocket science. But we do believe that both these activities are safer and more effective with a bit of learning and a lot of support from social networks who help you to know you are going down the right path for you and the voluntary sector can help do this for parents.
[i] Why parents shouldn't feel guilty if they can't devote time to their toddlers. Viv Groskop, The Observer, Sunday 11 September 2011 http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/sep/11/childcare-parenting-neuroscience-nurture
[ii] Swedish man arrested after trying to split atoms in his kitchen. The Telegraph Wednesday 03 Aug 2011 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8679630/Swedish-man-arrested-after-trying-to-split-atoms-in-his-kitchen.html
[iii] Local Services for Parents: What Mums Need. Report from Netmums, 4Children and Unite/CPHVA, 2011.
[iv] Bhavnani & Newburn . Left to their own devices: The postnatal experiences of 1260 first-time mothers. NCT, 2010.
[v] DfE. Letting Children be Children Report of an Independent Review of the Commercialisation and Sexualisation of Childhood by Reg Bailey. Department for Education, 2011.
[vi] UNICEF. Child well-being in the UK, Spain and Sweden: The role of inequality and materialism. UNICEF UK, 2011.
