“I just want her to be happy and healthy”: Deploying broad understandings of health in class-privileged parenting

Abstract

This study examined the role of class privilege in parents' understandings of children's health and their navigation of the work of supporting “healthy” children. Cultural and institutional discourses tend to frame class-advantaged parents as making choices for their children that maximize health, but this is not always the case. Analyses drew on 45 interviews with predominantly white, class-advantaged parents of elementary-aged children and associated observational data. Parents were navigating intensive childrearing expectations that were impossible to fully meet. Class-privileged parents' narratives constructed very broad understandings of children's health and well-being that encompassed social connections and academic, extracurricular, and athletic achievement, as well as physical and psychological health. Although this broad definition made it irreconcilable for them to meet expectations for children's health on all fronts, it allowed class-privileged parents to de-emphasize specific health behaviors for the sake of social or achievement concerns instead, while still framing these priorities as safeguarding the child's health. Thus, participants were able to justify to themselves and others that their parenting practices that tend to maintain privilege were health-focused. Findings demonstrate how broad definitions of health can support advantaged parenting, potentially redirecting scrutiny toward disadvantaged parents.