Adult supervision required [[electronic resource] ] : private freedom and public constraints for parents and children / / Markella B. Rutherford

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910778931103321
• Autore: Rutherford Markella B. <1973->
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: New Brunswick, NJ, : Rutgers University Press, c2011
• ISBN: 1-283-49198-2; 9786613491985; 0-8135-5221-4
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (227 p.)
• Collana: Families in focus
• Disciplina: 649/.109730904
• Soggetti: Parenting - Social aspects - United States; Child rearing - United States; Parent and child - United States; Mass media and families - United States
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Take It with a Grain of Salt: How Parents Encounter Experts and Advice -- 2. Seen and Heard: Children’s Growing Freedom at Home -- 3. Keeping Tabs on Kids: Children’s Shrinking Public Autonomy -- 4. Mixed Messages about Responsibility: Children’s Duties and the Work of Parenting -- 5. Psychology’s Child: Emotional Autonomy and the Privatization of the Self -- 6. Conclusion -- Appendix A: Sampling and Coding Procedures for Magazine Texts -- Appendix B: Interview Methods and Summary Description of Respondents -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the Author
• Sommario/riassunto: Adult Supervision Required considers the contradictory ways in which contemporary American culture has imagined individual autonomy for parents and children. In many ways, today’s parents and children have more freedom than ever before. There is widespread respect for children’s autonomy as distinct individuals, and a broad range of parenting styles are flourishing. Yet it may also be fair to say that there is an unprecedented fear of children’s and parents’ freedom. Dread about Amber Alerts and “stranger danger” have put an end to the ; unsupervised outdoor play enjoyed by earlier generations of suburban kids. Similarly, fear of bad parenting has not only given rise to a cottage industry of advice books for anxious parents, but has also granted state agencies greater power to police the family. Using popular parenting advice literature as a springboard for a broader sociological analysis of the American family, Markella B. Rutherford explores how our increasingly psychological conception of the family might be jeopardizing our appreciation for parents’ and children’s public lives and civil liberties.