Open Research Online The Open University’s repository of research publications and other research outputs Creating Hard-working, Responsible Parents: A New Labour Structure of Feeling? Thesis How to cite: Gambles, Richenda (2011). Creating Hard-working, Responsible Parents: A New Labour Structure of Feeling? PhD thesis The Open University. For guidance on citations see FAQs. c 2011 The Author https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Version: Version of Record Link(s) to article on publisher’s website: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21954/ou.ro.0000ee35 Copyright and Moral Rights for the articles on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. For more information on Open Research Online’s data policy on reuse of materials please consult the policies page. oro.open.ac.uk T Cy-i1- 31 03420249 11 I I 11 11 I I Creating Hard-working, Responsible Parents: A New Labour Structure of Feeling? RichendaGambles, BSc(Hons) Social Policy, MSc Gender and Social Policy Submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy, in the discipline of Social Policy, on Monday 12th September 2011 CA- 121 RichenclaGambles Table of contents Acknowledgments 3 .......................................................................................................................................... Thesis 4 abstract ................................................................................................................................................ 1. Becoming a parent during the New Labour 5 years: personal and political entanglements .......... 2. Parenting: the 19 political and public context ........................................................................................... 3. Searching for feeling: discussion 51 a structure of a of my research approach .................................. 4. Managing tensions dilemmas 83 gendered and ...................................................................................... 5. Managing expertise ................................................................................................................................112 6. Hardworking, responsible parents .......................................................................................................147 7. A structure of feeling about parenting and the the 177 significance of approach ............................... A note on previously published material ..................................................................................................191 References ....................................................................................................................................................192 Appendix one ................................................................................................................................................208 Appendix two ...............................................................................................................................................212 Appendix three ............................................................................................................................................215 Appendix four ..............................................................................................................................................217 Appendix five ..............................................................................................................................................219 Appendix six ...............................................................................................................................................237 2 RichenclaGambles Acknowledgments from This thesis could never have been written without the amazing support that I received my supervisors,John Clarkeand Janet Fink.They pushed me intellectually on everything and profoundly shaped my thinking and analysis.As well as the depth and quality of their advice, what I will also remember about working with them was how much we laughed together during supervision sessions.I will always look backvery fondly on every stageof my PhD researchwhich is testament to how interesting and fun they managed to make the process. in terms of my intellectual development, I would also like to thank Janet Newman who commented extensively on a chapter I wrote about Murnsnet and who, in the process,helped me think through the ways in which I was developingthe structure of feeling approachthat is central to my thesis. Many thanks, too, to all the parents I interviewed. Theseinterviews were critical for the development of my arguments and I am very grateful to all these parents for the time they so generouslygave me. I also have to thank my own parents who have always supported me and continued to do so throughout the PhD process. Thanks,in particular, to my mum who took time off work to look after my son during the final stages of the PhD write up so that I could go to supervisionsessions and have a few extra hours to work. But my most profound thanks go to Guy, my husband and best friend, and our son, Benjamin, who together gave me the opportunity and privilege of living and feeling the subject of this PhD,that of becominga parent. It is to you both that the thesis is dedicated,with my very deepest love. 3 RichenclaGambles Thesis abstract This thesis usesand extends RaymondWilliams' (1961; 1977) structure of feeling approachto locate a mood about parenting during the New Labour years, and to consider what this approach can reveal about the presence,power and position of policy in parents' lives. It adapts the structure of feeling approachin two particular ways: by including interviews alongsidepolicy and popular cultural sources;and by extending the notion of feeling to include personal feelings and their interaction with the wider public mood. Theseaclaptions were particularly relevant for a subject as personal as parenting,and for a cultural context which placed so much attention on the personal and personal responsibilitiesfor monitoring and supervisingthe self (Giddens,1991; Rose,1999). In locating and analysingthe structure of feeling, the thesis draws on the concepts of ideological dilemmas and interpretative repertoires which have been describedas a range of competing ideologiesthat make up beliefs, values, practices and wisdoms of particular cultures, and a range of different rhetorical resourcespeople have available to them to discussand make sense of the dilemmas (Billig, 2001; Edley, 2001). In identifying three particular dilemmas - about the genclered nature of parenting, expertise about parenting, and work in the context of parenting - the thesis locates dominant and alternative ideas about parenting which point to a structure of feeling that is full of contestation which is managedthrough discoursesof 'choice' and 'what works'. The thesis exploresthe personal responsibilitiesplaced on parents for managingthese dilemmasand the strategiesthey deploy to do this, and revealsthat these strategiescan vary accordingto parents' personal dispositions but also their social positionings.This thesis demonstratesthe usefulnessand significanceof the structure of feeling approachfor locating and understandingsocial inequalities and their (lack of) transformation in a cultural era emphasisingthe personaland personalresponsibility. 4 Richenda Gambles 1. Becoming a parent during the New Labour years: personal and political entanglements Having a child, particularly for the first time, and becoming a parent marks a major personal transition in life and is often a deeply significant experience. But how might this experience be affected by a political and public context that has much to say about parenting and child development and which is characterised by a sense of anxiety (Furedi, 2002; Hendrick, 2003; MacLeod, 2004; Kehily, 2010)? This question was formative in the development of my thesis research which explores how the personal and political dynamics of becoming a parent became entangled during the New Labour years (1997 - 2010). in this introductory chapter I discuss the significance of my focus on parenting during the New Labour years and my interest in the relationship between policy and personal life in relation to parenting. I also outline the role of popular culture in this relationship and my rationale for including this in my analysis. The chapter then turns to a discussion of Raymond Williams' structure of feeling approach that I developed to refine and address my specific research questions. These questions are: What does a study of policy, popular culture and personal accounts suggest about a structure of feeling about parentingduring the New Labouryears? And how might the structure of feeling approachenrich understandingsabout the presence, power and position of policy in parents' personallives? The significanceof parenting during the New Labour years Parenting has long been a site of intense Government interest and intervention. The period of examination in this study is the end of the twentieth century and beginning of the twenty first, which is a time defined by and correspondingwith the years of the New Labourgovernments (1997 - 2010). During this period, children - and, as a direct result, parents and their parenting - were 5 RichenclaGambles made a central aspect of New Labour's political vision and policy initiatives. A key reason for this was that children were seen as investments potentially able to offer so much for the future, for all our futures, in what was referred to as the 'social investment'