As a child psychologist, I worked mostly with working-class mothers whose children were conspicuously out of control, and only occasionally did I encounter the grief and guilt of middle-class caregivers. It was generally assumed that affluent mums had parenting worked out, and if they stumbled, they were supported by good schools, and by the other social institutions that they owned. Since retiring, however, I have been unsettled by the middle-class parenting I have observed – surreptitiously, as old professionals do – in supermarkets, cafés, and other public places.
Frankly, it is bewildering to me how otherwise successful adults have come to tolerate such coercive and unpleasant behaviour in children, although the seeds were already there in the families of my time with the fad diets, the quick ascription to Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), and the constant anxiety about stranger danger and sexual abuse. Now, we have a disturbing new book by Abigail Shrier, Bad Therapy: Why The Kids Aren’t Growing Up, which systematically dissects middle-class parenting in the US, and which presumably applies to other countries as well.
Shrier’s considerable achievement is in picturing the full space, and experience, of growing up middle class. To summarise a detailed argument, she contends that parents start with unrealistic hopes, to which they add ‘science-ish’ information from self-styled parenting experts, and then the whole boondoggle is confirmed and extended by repurposed schools. The result is the mental health crisis about which we are now all so concerned. Stepping back, this extraordinary state of affairs can be regarded as a significant accomplishment – whether deliberate or instinctive – by woke ideologues, and especially if families are considered the keystone of our community.
The heart of the progressive enterprise is ‘gentle parenting’, which promises empathy and respect, and the celebration of individuality. In practice, it is ‘surveillance parenting’, with hovering and monitoring, distracting and diverting, and negotiating and apologising. Here, avoiding saying ‘no’ is a fetish, fuelled by fears of causing emotional harm. This obsession also accounts for the affirmations (‘Emma is so bright/so creative/so sensitive’) and the daily accommodations (no tags on clothes and endless chicken nuggets). Effectively, life has become a cocoon of safetyism, where every activity and friendship is curated, and where even minor tumbles and disappointments are crises to be managed.
What is certain is that these parents didn’t get all these ideas from their own parents, who they regard with suspicion, and from whom they may now be estranged. Shrier blames the ever-expanding wellbeing industry of therapists, counsellors, paediatricians, and teachers who have spread ‘self-consciousness and fevered insecurity’, and by this means have usurped parental authority. In terms of evidence, much of the advice offered by these so-called experts is either ignorant or ideological.
It is well-established that competent parenting balances demands of children with responsiveness: clear expectations, consistently enforced, combined with warmth and attention. By contrast, constant surveillance and unending emotional check-ins – ‘How did that make you feel?’ – ensnare children in endless cycles of self-absorption and anxiety. Fairly obviously, young children do not have the capacity for self-reflection that parents now seem to regularly expect. And it is also inappropriate, as well as tedious, to continually ask youngsters to make ‘good choices’ about food, bedtimes, or behaviour.
Inevitably, when Oliver or Olivia arrives for their first day at school, they are patently ill-prepared for playing well with others and for this novel rules-based order. Still, it is usually not long before it is suggested to the mother that she should have her child ‘assessed’. Sure enough, another recruit is soon added to the swelling ranks of students who are on ‘the spectrum’ or who have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). At this point, parents can feel relief, and even absolution, because the failing is allegedly within their child, and not caused by them at all. But a significant line has been crossed nonetheless and according to Shrier, psychiatric diagnoses ‘have absolutely no business polluting a parent’s love’. As for the rush to counsellors and psychotherapists, the author sees them as offering sham relationships and iatrogenic interventions that are largely devoid of accountability.
Yet, diagnosis and labelling is only one of the recent harmful developments in schools. As equally insidious is that teachers in the US, Australia, and NZ have embraced Social and Emotional Learning (ESL), which appears laudable as it is concerned with self-awareness, self-management, and social competence. But the first problem with ESL is conceptual: the attainments in question are actually the results of lengthy psychological processes, and not entities that are quickly consumed from a course or a can. The second concern is more heartfelt, as we’re back to the ‘rule of feelings’, but this time the teachers are ‘playing shrink’ and intruding on families behind closed classroom doors.
Curiously, ESL’s emphasis on sharing and caring can assume that many students have endured traumas – whether from family conflict, bullying, racial discrimination, gender rejection, colonialism, or climate change. Moreover, once cast as victims, students are instructed to show empathy and compassion; and especially when classmates feel triggered, scared, or unsafe. But beware, the teaching of ‘caring’ quickly becomes socially divisive when it privileges identities and groups that are deemed to be marginalised. Tellingly, today’s social justice activists exemplify this selective compassion which they also combine with ferocious contempt.
How much does all this matter? Having swathes of sick and sad young people is a human development tragedy. But in another sense, it is not maladaptive if society continues to allow many of its supposedly-adult citizens to be self-consumed and fragile. After all, why shouldn’t the children of the elites persist in living with their parents into their thirties and to work from home for four days a week, if they wish to work at all? Progressives may believe that they are permanently instituting a new social order, but geopolitics and the denigrated working class very probably have other intentions. Simply put, should the world again demand competence and grit, our mollycoddled Gen Z poppets will find themselves seriously out of step and painfully unprepared.
What can be done to break this cycle of dysfunctional caregiving? Bad Therapy calls for a reversal of prevailing middle-class parenting practices and a return to routines, structures, expectations, and consequences that foster independence and which prepare young people for satisfying relationships. At its core, this means caregivers must have the courage to accept responsibility for their children’s outcomes, to recognise that they have only a brief opportunity to get it right, and that there are enduring consequences for getting it wrong. Relatedly, it’s also about reclaiming respect – for children, for parents, for family privacy and heritage, for parenting knowledge and wisdom – and for the self-respect that comes from fulfilling the most important adult role of our lives.
