Summary
Parenting - Laurie Taylor explores its cultural history and the shift towards intensive parenting. Andrew Bomback, Associate Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, investigates the emergence of an immersive, all-in approach to raising children that has made parenting a competitive sport. Drawing on “how-to” parenting books and historical accounts of parental duties he charts the way in which being a parent became a skill to be mastered.
They're joined by Benedetta Cappellini, who considers the impact of these social transformations on Grandmothers.
Producer: Jayne Egerton
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want |
| 0:14.4 | to share that science with you. |
| 0:16.1 | And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley. |
| 0:19.4 | I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that |
| 0:25.4 | calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:30.3 | BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts. |
| 0:36.5 | This is a Thinking Loud Podcasts, and for more details and much, much more about thinking |
| 0:42.7 | thinking about, go to our website at BBC.co. UK. |
| 0:47.4 | Hello. Last weekend I met up with my 10-year-old granddaughter Rose. She sat opposite me alongside her parents on one side of a |
| 0:56.2 | restaurant table and appeared to be silently enjoying her food while the adults |
| 1:01.0 | chattered happily away about their lives and times. |
| 1:04.8 | Well, I recognise that it was incumbent on me as a loving grandfather, or indeed any sort of |
| 1:09.8 | proper grandfather, to attempt some conversation with her. I dutifully asked her, what was school |
| 1:14.8 | like, what was her favourite subject, what did she want to be when she was a grown-up, but even as I |
| 1:20.0 | asked I was silently aware of how much my questions were not about fun, but implicitly about how well |
| 1:27.3 | her parents, my son and his wife were preparing her for a successful life ahead. |
| 1:33.0 | And it was only as I read a new paper by Benedetta Capulini, |
| 1:36.0 | professor of marketing at Durham University, |
| 1:38.5 | that I realize how much my questions were a reflection, |
| 1:42.1 | a symptom, if you like, of a significant shift in |
... |
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