New labour versus lone mothers´ discourses of parental responsibility and children´s needs
By: CHURCHILL, Harriet
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ArticlePublisher: Birmingham, UK : Institute of Local Government Studies, 2007Critical Policy Analysis 1, 2, p. 170-183Abstract: This paper examines policy and maternal accounts of parenting in light of new labour´s reforms aimed at reducing social exclusion among lone parent families in the UK. Drawing on documentary policy sources and in-depth interviews with welfare reliant and employed lone mothers, the paper highlights convergence and divergence between policy and maternal accounts. While policy and maternal perspectives demonstrate a shared concern with good mothering, differences emerge in how responsibilities and needs are defined, prioritised and resourced. New labour´s welfare reforms stress parental responsibilities for labour market participation, children´s educational development and children´s social behaviour; with parents who do not prioritiise these activities deemed problematic. However, mothers´ accounts demonstrate a much more complex understanding of the risks as well as opportunities associated with paid work, education and behavioural control. Mothers negotiated concerns about mothering practices, mathernal authority, children´s agency, family well-being and access to resources wich are downplayed in national policy debates. The conclusion argues that new labour policy discourses neglect issues on well-being, diversity and inequality wich, if more fully recognised, could enhance anti-poverty and family support measures aimed at mothers
This paper examines policy and maternal accounts of parenting in light of new labour´s reforms aimed at reducing social exclusion among lone parent families in the UK. Drawing on documentary policy sources and in-depth interviews with welfare reliant and employed lone mothers, the paper highlights convergence and divergence between policy and maternal accounts. While policy and maternal perspectives demonstrate a shared concern with good mothering, differences emerge in how responsibilities and needs are defined, prioritised and resourced. New labour´s welfare reforms stress parental responsibilities for labour market participation, children´s educational development and children´s social behaviour; with parents who do not prioritiise these activities deemed problematic. However, mothers´ accounts demonstrate a much more complex understanding of the risks as well as opportunities associated with paid work, education and behavioural control. Mothers negotiated concerns about mothering practices, mathernal authority, children´s agency, family well-being and access to resources wich are downplayed in national policy debates. The conclusion argues that new labour policy discourses neglect issues on well-being, diversity and inequality wich, if more fully recognised, could enhance anti-poverty and family support measures aimed at mothers
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