‘Parents need to become independent problem solvers’: a critical reading of the current parenting culture through the case of Triple P

Abstract

This paper aims to contribute to recent critical work on the current parenting culture. It does so by a critical reading of the individual words/parts of the sentence ‘Parents need to become independent problem solvers’ – a characteristic phrase of ‘Triple P’, a parenting programme that has recently been implemented as a form of parenting support in a number of countries. The paper aims (1) to bring out and expose some of the worrying features of the current parenting culture, (2) criticise its narrow conceptions of what a parent is and what childrearing is, (3) by doing so give a sense of the oddness of implementing Triple P as a form of parenting support and, finally, (4) tentatively suggest alternative routes of thinking for and about childrearing as well as ‘grafting points’ to start reconstructing parenting support practices.