The problem with holidays is one has time to scheme. The day-to-day pressures of working and upholding a work persona mean that when one’s time is one’s own and the inbox is ignored and the work persona shelved: new, interesting, ambitious and creative projects come to the fore. Currently, the ambitious and creative project hamster which spins the wheel in the back of my head and occasionally and loudly nibbles on toilet roll is what I would do for a PhD. More often than not, the rustlings and nibbling’s of project hamster are drowned out by the bellows of students and vicissitudes of everyday life. Like I say, that’s the problem with holidays.
Men are a problem. I would confidently claim that in a substantial amount of a child protection social worker’s case load the bulk of the load is caused by a man: a man who is absent causes problems; a man who is present causes problems. They’re just problematical. Problematic men in a child’s life within a child protection context would be fairly obvious – risk of abuse. However, their absence from a child’s life can place significant strain on the normative parenting workload of a single parent. Furthermore, the lack of a good role model can also be detrimental to a child’s sense of identity and esteem. However, not all male parenting figure’s absences are linked to child protection. Oftentimes, the nature of a significant male role model’s absence in a child’s life is simply due to expectations and pressures of work, and within the context of international schools – the earning divide. This is especially felt in countries where the wife (though not exclusively) or ‘accompanying spouse’ can’t get a work visa which places the ‘breadwinner’ burden firmly on the male side. The reality for a lot of hard-working and loving fathers is that their ‘problematic’ absence is not due to maleficence, but simply work commitment. Another significant variable, especially for expat families, is the lack of a family support network. All put simply, in my experience in international schools, dads are away a lot. I know this because the children tell me. And they tell me that whilst they understand why their dads are away…they miss them.
Parenting can be problematic. And in child protection social work it can become unsafe and concerning. When child protection social workers are faced with overwhelming evidence that a child is at risk of significant harm, they can use legal powers or ‘Care Orders’ to remove that child from the home (often temporarily, sometimes permanently). During that period of separation and before any final court orders around adoption happen, the biological parents retain their legal status of ‘parent’ and all the responsibilities therein, however the local authority is given a new epithet: Corporate Parent. Now, I like the phrase ‘corporate parent’. That said, I understand the grind between something as innately caring and purposeful as ‘parent’ and something as myopic, calculative and materialistic as ‘corporate’. However, parenting can be a hot boiling mix of values, ethics and psychology that could benefit from the cubed iced drops of policy, procedure and measurable outcomes. What I liked most about the phrase ‘corporate parent’ during my time as a social worker is it separated me from the role. When I was working with a child, I could exhibit the unconditional regard for safety and the intuitive show of compassion and care linked inextricably with good parenting but had that corporate parent embossed tempered glass panel between us that allowed me to make rationale and evidenced based decisions for what was best – unfettered by any ‘loving obligation’.
Well, that was theory. In practice it was incredibly hard – especially when the ‘Body Corporate Parent’ (senior leadership) insisted on decisions that either made no sense or clearly didn’t know the child. However, I digress.
Can I say, the hamster in my head is feeling the love right now? I am metaphorically cleaning out the cage, refilling the water and putting a few treats in the bowl here. To be honest, it was beginning to smell a little bit.
The PhD idea? I am essentially talking about non-dangerous absent fathers and the role of the corporate parent – in this case ‘teacher’ and more specifically: ‘male primary school teacher’. Where am I going with this within an international school context and what does this have to do with a PhD? It would be my view that male primary school teachers have a corporate parenting role to play in their student’s lives within certain specific contexts. I would almost go as far as an ‘obligation’ to do so (if I was feeling more controversial) And whilst there are professional, ethical, and sociological issues with this claim (and that I would be made to refute) ultimately, teachers do share the parenting load; they do have a legal duty of care anyways and, because of the problem of men – male teachers should be prepared to pick up the extra heavy lifting in certain contexts as a corporate parent.
Cage is clean, hamster is happy. I’ve made a lot of claims here about fathers and family demographics in an international school setting – but I reckon with a good academic library, and some of my own qualitative research, I could substantively prove this to be the case. I’ll be arguing some pretty interesting points from education philosophy, sociology and ethics but again, I would probably enjoy that! But, what do you think? I would welcome the views of any readers of this piece on the statement:
Male Primary School teachers have a corporate parenting role to play within the lives of children with absent fathers.
This month, instead of a piece heavy on analytical philosophy, I want to present a discussion. I’ve been meaning to put some thoughts down about parenting and with the half term holidays now upon us – it felt like the perfect time to write such a piece. Spoiler alert: whilst I am deliberately toning down the philosophy – there may be a smattering of psychology.
This was one of the best pieces of advice we were given as freshly minted parents:
The bad times will always pass, but so will the good.
At first blush, this can seem a little disheartening, a little discomforting. Our initial reaction was one of: ‘Wow..okay..errr..thanks?’ However, it came to be a wise and oft repeated mantra as we early parented our eldest into his nursery years. The same with our second, and now it’s as prescient as ever as our daughter moves into her next phase of weaning and sleeping through the night.
What the phrase means is: don’t drop your chin when the tough times of caring for an infant kick in, because it will pass. Equally, don’t get complacent when it’s all gurgles and giggles, smiles and naps. Philosophically, this is all very stoical (I know, I promised, but it’s just this bit). Be in the moment! Take nothing for granted. This is a practical way of thinking about parenting, a way of rationalizing your emotions.
Practical parenting advice can give you small victories as well as promote healthy child development. When they were babies, I always found gently tapping our children’s backs (mimicking the mother’s heartbeat in the womb) a useful way of calming them when they’d got themselves into a tizzy. This was shown to me by our Health Visitor at the time (what troopers they are – In the UK a Health Visitor is assigned to every new mother and father to support with keeping their baby healthy and happy as well as performing some clinical work and yes, it’s free of charge). Then there’s using distraction techniques for toddlers (who were misbehaving) to avoid public (mainly supermarket) confrontations. Then there’s helping your teenage son negotiate Xbox time so he keeps on top of his studies. All of these things I do have been techniques taught to me and none of them have asked questions or changed my values as a parent.
I wonder though if that’s the comparative beauty of practical parenting tips: their overall objectivity. If it can be applied to your own child and if it works, hurrah! And if it doesn’t? No harm, no foul. Practical parenting advice can be simply about how your ‘doing’ something (for example: tips on effectively releasing trapped wind). Or it can be about cognition (how we think about a problem) for example: how do I promote my teenage son’s privacy whilst also ensuring they are safe online. But ultimately, practical parenting advice be it ‘doing’ or ‘thinking’ about how to improve some quality of our child’s life is about encouraging our approach to be rational and see outcomes as measurable.
I should also make a clear distinction between ‘parenting advice’ and clinical and legal requirements in law that inform how to treat children and keep them flourishing. But as I shall sketch later; parenting values can sometimes cross that line as well.
Not all parenting advice is practical. Some of it can question our ‘ways’ of parenting – it questions our entire parenting philosophy – our parenting values. As a child protection Social Worker – operating at the thin end of this wedge – I would see practical parenting choices informed by strongly held beliefs that were potentially causing emotional harm to a child. My professional guidance here was more than just helping parents make better practical parenting choices – it was about overhauling a whole parenting approach for the good of the child. I want to try and avoid over seasoning this discussion with serious tales from social work. I mentioned it simply to state that freedom to parent according to our own beliefs is not always permissible.
Here is the important distinction I want to make: a parenting philosophy can inform the choices we make as to how to practically parent (either what we do or how we choose to think about parenting). Examples might be parenting according to religious beliefs, cultural norms or subjective ethical choices. My discussion in this post is about this part of our parenting life. We can pick and choose and be less emotionally attached to practical parenting advice in itself – but when it comes to advice that pulls at our parenting values…we can be less rationale.
We need an example to flesh this out a little. One of my parenting values is I want my children to be independent. I remember when my eldest was five or six and falling off his bike on a busy Sunday afternoon at the park. This was not his first ‘rodeo’ (as they say in Texas) and whilst he had ridden before – he was still a relative novice. As he lost his balance and tumbled into a heap of bike frame, spinning wheels and scraped knees, I made a quick visual assessment of his wellbeing: he was fine. Therefore, according to my values, this was an opportunity for him to self-regulate and self soothe. A chance for him to practice differentiating between what he can make better himself versus what I as his father should make better for him. And so, with a steady strong voice I told him to ‘pick himself up’ ‘dust himself off’ and ‘get back on’. I remember vividly the disapproving looks I got from passers-by around me. I think the expectation was I would rush over and scoop him up and ‘wipe away his tears’. But that isn’t part of my parenting values. Later on that day my son and I chatted about it and he was able to understand how ‘being brave’ and ‘getting back on the bike’ were virtuous actions and I knew that this reflection and internalization would serve him well in his development.
I know cognitively and rationally that self-soothing and self-regulation are critical in child development for well-rounded secure children. But I chose to follow that guidance because as a child growing up with a parent with severe mental health problems, I have internalized a suspicion of being overly dependent on others. So you see, my values come from a deep emotional connection. And that has informed my practical choices.
All that said…there’s nothing wrong with a parent running to their disheveled and wet-faced five-year-old, kissing their grazed knee and buying them an ice-cream to make them feel better. It’s just…that’s not my way of parenting. If a stranger approached me displaying disapproval with my outlook and sought to advise me against it…it may not be met by my rationale brain! But why?
Our ‘way’ of parenting can be influenced by so many factors. As I confessed to above, our own experiences as a child would certainly act as one of the main sources of values alongside the values of our own parents. One explanation for this is: ‘Social Learning Theory’. In this theory, children are more likely to copy ‘models’ identified as ‘high prestige’ particularly when the action being copied is rewarded in some way. By ‘models’ we can mean not only significant adults, but even celebrities and personal heroes in the media. This ‘copying’ and internalizing, formed by social interactions, big and small and both inter-personal and through the media builds the mountain strata of our own parenting personality. These compressed layers of our social interactions, each different in density depending on the attachment (family, friends, societal norms) sees us settle into a ‘way of parenting’ that structures a philosophy and approach that informs some of our practical parenting choices. In my experience of working with parents both as a teacher and social worker these values, whilst not as immobile as a mountain, offer some resistance when challenged even when the challenge comes from a place of good reason.
Let’s take an extreme example to secure my point on this perspective, smacking. As practical parenting advice goes: don’t smack your children. There’s no evidence that it is beneficial. Most children who are smacked will still do the thing they were hit for doing in the first place. Aside from its questionable efficacy, the other issue with smacking is it doesn’t come from a rational place. As a Social Worker I met families who smacked their children and the conversations never went like this:
Thanks for coming Dillon. Billy bit her little sister yesterday. So his mum and I…we sat down and we discussed what we should do about it. We decided that a good smack on the bottom should just about do it. We tried to find a smacking ‘app’ but sadly nothing, so instead we agreed on where on his body the smack would happen, the force of which it would be delivered, and the post-smack discussion.
Said NO-ONe, ever.
The reason this doesn’t happen is because smacking is not a rational act; it’s an emotional act.
Therefore, what could be the rationale, the sensible reason, for hitting a child?
The response?
“It never did me any harm”
In America hitting your child is sanctioned (it’s defined as ‘reasonable chastisement’) and also in the Middle East. But it’s still up to the parents whether they want to add striking their child into their parenting toolbox. However, because it’s not the rational choice, it must come from somewhere deeper, somewhere where knowledge is acquired through a socially learned way of being rather than a place more objective. I would certainly argue then, that a right and just time to challenge a ‘way of parenting’ even when it may not be causing significant physical or emotionally harm – is when that parenting philosophy is mirroring or copying learned behaviors that are in themselves either fault or crumble under the scrutiny of good parenting practices for child development.
Therefore, my discussion here is simply this. Clearly, there is sound objective (and often clinical) practical parenting advice as to what is best for your child. Then there is advice that promotes healthy ways to ‘think’ about parenting and the challenges that come up. However, our parenting values, the way we wish to parent will inform which advice we take. And if there is a ‘faulty’ value in there, this could lead to good advice being ignored and sketchy guidance being adopted.
Conclusion:
So, what’s the solution? Well, for some children, parenting is not done by one person. I have met many, many hard working and dedicated single parents. My goodness me. When you have been in the company of a single mum with the three children under the age of five – you cannot help but be moved to admiration at times. For those fortunate single parents and parent duos there are own parents (or significant others), grandparents and a posse of friends, aunties and uncles who can keep ‘us’ within the checks and balances of rationale parenting. I am very fortunate. My wife and I share the same parenting values and so we make a good team. When I am being irrational in some parenting approach, she’s there to re-ask the motivation behind a decision and vice versa. Just a few weeks ago I was cross at my son and so took his xbox out of his room. But that doesn’t promote his ‘self-regulation’. It only edifies the controlling parent choosing punishment over restoration. I gave it back to him the following morning and apologised – and the resulting conversation laid firmer foundations on which to build each others expectations. I also firmly believe in the old proverb – ‘it takes a village to raise a child’. If we can accept our vulnerability as parents and the unpredictability of raising children, we will find ourselves receptive to not just helpful parenting guidance, but also checking and reflecting on our own values and make sure they come from a place that results in choosing advice and help that is truly best for our child.
StoatAubergine 