Family Policy and the Politics of Parenting: From Function to Competence

Abstract

Recent years have seen governments prioritize family as a mechanism for tackling social ills. As a result, some of the most significant social changes of late have taken place within the arena of family policy, with huge consequences for families themselves. Governments have increasingly come to see families more in terms of their practices than structures and have targeted policy interventions accordingly. Reflecting an increasing professionalization of family relationships, emphasis has been placed on the need for all parents to have access to support, advice, and guidance. In this chapter, I discuss how dominant moral constructions of family have shifted away from concerns with function and structure to embrace a new policy-centred orthodoxy of “competence.” I begin by outlining how in the UK, parenting was pushed to the centre stage of the social policy curriculum in line with a neoliberal emphasis on family, community, and personal responsibility (Gillies 2005, 2007). More specifically, the advent of the New Labour government in 1997 marked a distinct attempt to reposition family life as a public rather than a private concern.