Stand Aside for a Society of Super-Parents
A report recently published by Calpol and the consumer Think Tank, Future Foundation, has revealed that the UK is being overtaken by a generation of ‘super parents’ who are ‘professionalising’ the parenting role to successfully juggle both career and child.The Changing Face of Parenting report, which is officially launched at the Institute of Child Health, London today (4th October), reveals some interesting insights into the nature of parenting today.
The general sense that parents are increasingly time-pressed and do not spend sufficient time with their children has been proven false with new figures showing that today’s parents spend an average of 85 minutes per day engaged in childcare, compared with only 25 minutes in 1975.
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Technology savvy parents are also getting ahead of the game and are showing a keen interest in using technology to help manage their children - video links to a school or nursery were considered useful by 1 in 3 parents with children born in 2000 or after (as compared to just 1 in 10 of those with children born 1989 or earlier). In addition, 40% of these newer parents would be interested in location-tracking devices for their children.
Commenting on the findings, Paul Flatters, Chief Executive of the Future Foundation said: “We are seeing what we’ve called a generation of ‘Super parents’ emerging in today’s society. Parents and potential parents are now taking a highly professionalised and demanding approach to raising children more than ever before. It is therefore not surprising that they are delaying or rejecting the parenting role until it suits their lifestyle, financial situation and anxiety needs.
Illness remains top of mind for today’s parents with the report revealing that parents (and potential parents) would value increased accessibility of healthcare beyond the standard. 68% felt that a private consultation room at their local pharmacist would be helpful for their children’s healthcare needs, while 56% felt that having a doctor’s surgery in the local supermarket would be valuable.
Alyson Lockey, Spokesperson for Calpol, who commissioned the report, commented: “As an extension of the professional approach to child-rearing, parents are taking it upon themselves to gain a full understanding of matters relating to their children’s health and ensure there is adequate and convenient access to health services. This is not surprising as the report shows that children’s illnesses are seen to disrupt usual family arrangements on average every 3 months - amounting to nearly 4 working weeks within the child’s first four years alone. This is something the ‘super parents’ generation are not prepared to put up with and is an area of great interest and concern for potential parents.”
The report highlights that, as a result of the professionalised approach to parenting, today’s parents are having fewer children and doing so later in life than any previous generation. The findings reveal that having children is now thought of as a lifestyle choice rather than an inevitable lifestage. Key findings behind why we are delaying the parenting role include:
Finances
Financial reasons are the greatest inhibitor to starting a family, according to the survey
2.6 million adults under 45 delay having children to invest or save for a child - this is also reflected in 66% of potential parents surveyed.
Over half of potential parents are delaying having children to move to a bigger home.
A minority of parents (7%) would rule out having children because they couldn’t afford it.
Lifestyle
50% male and 40% female potential parents felt they were not ready to make the lifestyles changes necessary to accommodate having children.
Today’s generation are participating in twice as many leisure activities as 25 years ago and having children would mean, more so than ever, the willingness to slow down.
Lifestyle reasons are the most influential for those who have decided not to have children at all - ‘just deciding not to’ or ‘not willing to change my lifestyle’ accounts for half of these decisions.
Fear/Anxiety
Irrational fear also plays a role as an inhibitor to having children, albeit a much smaller one than lifestyle and finances, one in five potential parents feel that they need to move to a safer neighbourhood.
11% feel that the world is a too dangerous place to raise children and 7% have given up as they feel that they would not be a good parent.
Read more from 8 out of 10 Mums Say
October 2006 |
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