Interview with Professor Frank Furedi on 'Paranoid parenting'

In this episode, Matthew talks to Professor Frank Furedi. Frank is a Hungarian-Canadian academic and professor of sociology at the University of Kent and here he talks about his ideas on parents, childhood and fear. Frank discusses ideas from his book 'Paranoid parenting' about how childhood have become over protected from the late 70s onwards. The discussion also considers how children are being impacted by over catiousness and how parenting has continued to be impacted by fear. Frank also explain his ideas on the adultification of children and the infantilisation of adults.

You can find out more about Frank on his webiste - https://www.frankfuredi.com/ and follow him on twitter @Furedibyte

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Hi, You're listening to The SociologyShow, a podcast about absolutely anything to
do with the wonderful world of sociology. Whether you're a teacher, a lecturer,
a student, or just taking apassing interest. This podcast will look
at a range of issues from socialcasts, ethnicity, gender, sexuality,
religion, crime, education, andanything else that sociology has to offer.

(00:29):
My name is Matthew Wilkin. Ineach episode, I will speak to someone
working in the field of sociology andlet them explain all about their own interests,
their research, and their experiences.So put your ear phones in,
turn the volume up, and let'sbe sociology gigs together. Eh. Hello,

(00:49):
and welcome to the Sociology Show podcast. My guest for this episode is
Professor Frank Farreddi. Professor Frank Freddietalked to me about his book Paranoid Parenting,
which is really really useful for familiesand households if you're studying that either
GCSC or A level. And healso talked about his more recent book How
Fear Works, which is really usefulfor a whole range of different topics,

(01:11):
from crime to globalization and all inbetween. So, without further ado,
let's go over to the interview withProfessor Frank Freddie. Thank you very much
for coming on the show. Wouldyou like to start by telling us a
little bit about who you are andwhat you do? Please? Well.
My name is Frank Freddie. I'ma sociologist and an author, and I

(01:33):
spent a long period of my liferesearching and dealing with sociological issues. I
got entered by accident. It wasn'tsomething I intended to do, because initially
I did my PhD in African studiesin the nineteen seventies. But then I
became increasingly interested in issues to dowith our own society rather than something that

(01:57):
existed far away, and in particular, I became interested in the question of
fear and risk and was really excitedto have the opportunity to explore the way
that fear impacted in our lives andthe way that a lot of our everyday

(02:20):
concerns were being increasingly framed through aninflated sense of fear and anxiety. So
that's really how I kind of beganto do my more serious sociological work,
and I published a book called Cultureof Fear in nineteen ninety seven, which
then provided the starting point for alot of my other work, a lot

(02:42):
of other research in the subsequent twentyyears. Thank you. I'm one of
those areas of fear which we're goingto talk about today is the issue of
parenthood and childhood. And you wrotea book, was it two thousand and
two, Paranoid Parentings around that period? Yeah, around then two thousand and
one, I think, but I'mnot hundred percent show. Yeah, yeah,
and a full title paranoid parenting whileignoring the experts maybe best for your

(03:06):
child? And so would you liketo give us a little bit of an
introduction into what your motivation was forthe book and also what your sort of
main findings are. Well, whathappened was that I became a further leading
life and I noticed that the waythat children were regarded, babies were regarded,
was very different than I had anticipated. And in particular, I noticed

(03:28):
that there was a kind of aclimate of fear in the bringing up of
kids, and virtually every child wouldexperience went with a health warning. And
that was something that really concerned mebecause it also meant that parents became a
considerable extent disoriented by the fact thatthey had to continually look after and watched

(03:50):
their children twenty four hours a day, and therefore I felt that in particular,
children's capacity to have an independent lifewithout adulthood adults supervising them was being
on demand. So my commitment tothe freedom of children to basically have the
space to grow up without being micromanagedwas something that motivated me to write the

(04:14):
book, and in the course ofdoing that, I think I found out
to my surprise that parenting, whichor child rearing, which historically has been
seen as an accomplishment of a relationship, something that you do as a relationship
as your child, was increasingly beingredefined as a skill. So you have

(04:35):
this term which never existed in thepast, called parenting skill. And not
only was the redefined as a skill, but parents were told that they were
amateurs who lacked these skills, andtherefore they had to find experts who apparently
had the sophisticated understanding how to bringup a kid. And this, I

(04:56):
think kind of created a dependency ora tempt to create a dependency of parents
and experts, which further on themind the confidence of parents, And I
felt that what I called parent orparenting was really the product of these kinds
of virus societal pressures where the problemsfacing children were being continually inflated, and

(05:19):
because they were being continually inflated,parents were in a sense put on the
defensive. But then in addition tothat, parents capacity to bring kids up
was being continually questioned. And doyou think that sort of over cautiousness over
protectiveness. Is there a moment intime where you think it really sort of
there was a tipping point where thatreally became apparent. I think it very

(05:41):
much kicked in in the late seventies, and there's a lot of evidence that
shows that the amount of time thatchildren spend on their own outdoors begins to
diminish. The amount of time thatmoms and dad spends with their kids increases
from the late seventies onwards. AndI think it's interesting that as you kind
of look at the world in thesubsequent fifty years, it gets worse and

(06:04):
worse all the time, so thatevery generation of parents is probably less confident
than the one that preceded, andevery generation of parents feels constrained to spend
more time with their kids than theones before. So you have a situation
to just agree. An example thatin the nineteen seventies, a mother who
wasn't working in the nineteen seventies spentless time with their kids, you know,

(06:30):
sort of than than what would happenkind of subsequently, and what happened
what's happening increasingly is that there's lessand less ability on the part of children
to explore the outdoors and have thatkind of freedoms, and kids therefore becoming
increasingly focused and chained digitally, chainedto their digital bedrooms. I mean it

(06:57):
sort of guy's hand in hand withthe argument. A lot of people would
say that protectiveness is evidence of amore child centered, more caring society.
Wait, does that sort of argumentfitting with you, because that would suggest
it's actually gone the other way.Yeah. I think there's a there's a
fundamental flaw in the argument that webecome more more child centered and more sensitive

(07:17):
because it's not children who are demandingto be continually supervised by the apparentson like
a massive movement on the part ofyoung kids to say, we don't want
to explore the outdoors, we don'twant to be on our own. It's
the adult world that has decided thatit doesn't trust children to make their way

(07:40):
and develop independently, and it's theadult world that decides that the world is
so dangerous and so threatening that kidsneed to be insulated from being exposed to
everyday life. And although this isoften called child centered, I think it's
very much adult centered. Is aresult of adult obsessions which are being recycled

(08:05):
through children. It must be reallydifficult, frank to piece together the disconnect
between the threat that the media istelling us is out there for children in
a whole manner of ways, frompedophilia to online of use, pulling,
whatever it is, and the realityis the reality of threat actually much smaller
than the media would have us believe. I think it is. But we

(08:28):
have to remember that if we're toldthat something is dangerous and threatening, then
we will perceive it as dangerous andthreatening, and therefore our capacity to manage
uncertain to manage risks diminishes. Andone of the things that I have found
was that if and in sort ofthe media, it's the entire parenting industry,

(08:52):
it's very much the kind of culturalinstitutions that we inhabited. If they
continually tell the world that, forexample, putting pressure on children in schools,
having exams in schools makes them ill, and they're going to be traumatized,
and they're going to become unable tocope with life as a result of

(09:16):
that, which is a relatively newdevelopment because there's been exams around for a
very, very long time, forcenturies. Then what will happen is that
people will internalize, children will internalizethe idea that exams are really scary,
that exams are going to make youill. I remember talking to my wife,
who's roughly my age to be younger, and she tells me that when

(09:41):
she did her ECSC exams back inthe days, she was hardly even aware
of the fact that these exams wereconsequential. She was hardly aware of the
fact that this was a make orbreak moment in her life. She certainly
didn't have anything more than the normalanxieties that you have when you're at an
exam. Used to call that havingbutterflies in your stomach, and certainly nobody

(10:03):
was traumatized by it. Whereas today, if you've been told that this is
going to have a big psychological impacton your life, this is very potentially
quite threatening that after a while thatnarrative will be something that you live by.
You internalize and it becomes a selffulfilling prophecy. I think one of
the things you mentioned in the bookactually is that putting pressure on children is

(10:26):
asking children to behave like adults,and vice versa. You've got the infantilization
of adults. But what did youmean by that? Just for our listener,
so could you just explain what youmean by those ideas? Well,
There's two ideas that I've been developingand it's still in the process of developing,
which is, on the one hand, the adultification of children and the

(10:46):
infantilization of adults. These two thingsgo hand in hand, and I think
that one of the things that hasoccurred is that on the one hand,
we treat children as like precious littlebabies that cannot come on a sort of
coup on their own, and wetreat them childishly rather than the way that

(11:07):
children ought to be treated, Sowe don't really trust them to do the
kind of things that were expected asnormal throughout the centuries. But at the
same time as we're doing that,we often sexualize them. We we kind
of treat them as like little adultsin the way that they're kind of expected

(11:31):
to, you know, the waythat for example, told about psychological issues
and therefore they become adult to fight. I remember my own son, by
the time he was nine or ten, he had a very sophisticated psychological vocabulary
that he picked up from school.You know. He would say, oh,
man, I'm really stressed out,you know, I'm I'm depressed,

(11:54):
you know, and he sounded likea little fraud because that's what you learn
in school. And he kind ofa kind of absorbed all these hitherto adult
problems. And at the same time, a lot of the adults, you
know, because they've you know,sort of a variety of reasons, because
they've become so confused about how todraw the line between themselves and their children,

(12:18):
because they're so immerged in their everydaylife, begin to act like children.
And you have this this kind ofweird situation where mothers go shopping with
their daughters and it's their daughter stovesand what to wear rather than the other
way around. And that kind of, you know, sort of shifting generational

(12:39):
relationship is quite fascinating from a sociologicalpoint of view. The Sociology Show podcast
relies on the kind contributions of sponsorshipand donations. If you enjoy the show.
Then you can help with the hostingcosts by donating as little as five
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(13:01):
com and search for the Sociology Show. If you can donate, then you
will be sent to Sociology Show penas a small thank you for your continued
support of the show. Just thinkingas well to two decades on from when
the book was first published, wheredo you think we are at the moment?
Frank? Do you think the situationshave got worse that they've been improvements?
How do you see it? Ithink the situation has become far worse,

(13:28):
and it's it's really accelerated, especiallyin the last decade, and in
particularly it's excellent accelerated in relation tothe way in which children and their personality
has been redefined as one which isinherently powerless and vulnerable. And we don't
see, completely deny in practice theircapacity for resilience, and therefore we do

(13:54):
not believe that children are likely tocope with the kind of normal pressures of
everyday life, the existential difficulties thatall of us have when we grow up.
We see our hurdles are almost impossiblefor children to overcome, certainly overcome
on their own. And in thatsense, what we've done by this kind

(14:18):
of parenting regime is we've created asense of permanent identity crisis where a lot
of young kids are struggling to knowwho they are, what they're about.
You know, usually, historically,by the time you're eighteen or nineteen,
even have resolved your identity crisis andgot a sense of what you're all about.

(14:39):
Whereas today, when you're eighteen ornineteen, you're still are in many
cases dealing with issues that historically arepre adolescent issues. As I'm just thinking
about that, I was always lookinglooking back over the book, I wondered
how important cases such as the Madlingmccan disappearance or the Manchester bombings. Do
you think those of had even moreimpact on the other protectiveness of parents and

(15:03):
sort of a cautiousness about what ourchildren are doing to some extent, Yes,
I mean, you know, themedia does play a role, and
you know there are all these symbolsof dangers. You know that one one
can look back over the twenty yearsand there are several cases that highlights the
precarious state of childhood but I thinkthat I think that there is much greater

(15:26):
problems than that. I think thoseamplify rather than are responsible for creating the
cultural conditions for these kinds of attitudes. And I think what I see as
being a far bigger problem is theloss of confidence in adults who the depletion

(15:46):
of what it means to be anadult, the moral content of being grown
up of maturity has been underman tothe extent that a lot of mothers and
fathers lack the confidence to be ableto do the job and know the tremendous
pressure, and that further on themind that and they're being continually told that,

(16:08):
you know, parenting is the mostdifficult job you will ever face.
That's what they always say, thatparenting is the is the most the greatest
sort of challenge that you will encounter. Whereas for thousands of years, you
know, parenting or child rearing wasthe norm. You didn't need to have
a PhD. In psychology to bea good mother or father. In fact,

(16:30):
you didn't have to go to schoolat all to be a caring mother
and a good father. These thingswere abilities that evolved with maturity, whereas
today they are in a sense calledinto question, and their importance as a
result of that diminishes their importance,their sense of you organically becoming a moment

(16:55):
of dad, especially when the expertsquite often contradicted each other. Right,
there's a sort of a mind fieldof information coming towards parents where they're probably
feeling a little bit lost themselves asto what is the correct thing to do
in any given situation. You're right, I mean, that's so confusing because
you know, one day you're toldthat carrying parents sleep with their babies.

(17:17):
Next day you're told that if yousleep with your baby that can create cod
debt and it's very dangerous. Soyou're getting your conflicting advice on everything from
the food you to a variety ofwhat other experiences all the time, and
just linking that idea up with yourmore recent book, How Fear Works.
One of the key aspects of thatbook is that we are experiencing fear differently

(17:41):
today than we used to. Sodo you mind just explain what you mean
by that. Well, I thinkthat the problem is not fearing, because
fearing is a is a natural,normal state, and sometimes fearing is a
good thing because there are some genuinethreats out there. I think that the
problem that we're faced with is whenour understanding of uncertainty it becomes one that

(18:11):
almost paralyzes us. I mean,historically, uncertainty can be seen as an
opportunity, something you kind of lookforward to. You don't know what the
outcome will be, but you youthink this is an exciting quest and exciting
adventure. And there are moments inhuman history where the sieity is really,
you know, sort of reveled inthat and thrive. They're flourished on that.

(18:33):
And there are times like today whenuncertainty is seen not as an opportunity
but as a problem because we don'tthink we can manage it, and we
become so wary of uncertainty that weend up inflating problems and turning them into
threads, but not just turning theminto threats, but increasingly into existential threads.

(18:56):
So a lot of issues become redefinesthe problems of existence, and under
those circumstances, the way we fearand the meaning of fear is one that
is much more corrosive. It's lesshelpful than it would be under kind of
circumstances. And the book what Itry to do is to try to look
at the way the way that fearworks and tries to explain some of the

(19:19):
cultural drivers and that makes us ina sense so fearful and allowing in the
capacity to manage the uncertain dimensions ofour daily lives. And what would you
say are the current main fears thatare driving let's even take it to British

(19:40):
society, what are the underlying sortof risk factors people live in fear of.
Well, the interesting thing is isthat we talk far more about fear
than we really fear because we're encouragedto do that. So I'm involved in
a project at the moment where we'relooking at what people fear in different parts
of Europe. And the interest thingthing is is that when you look at

(20:02):
all the services that are being cartercarried out, what people fear are not
the headline fears that are from themedia. It's not like global terrorism or
global warming, or it's not likeyou know, sort of pedophilia or you
know sort of or or crime.What people fear at the end of the

(20:25):
day is what they've always feared inmodern times, particularly from the twentieth century
onward, which is their economic security, which is their old ege pension,
which is the question, you know, is my child going to have a
job when when they kind of growup, So what their fear is actually
quite constant, And that's that's thegood news the end of the day,

(20:47):
that's that's that's what occurs. Butthe problem is is that at the same
time, and as as as wekind of have these kinds of fears,
we become and inserted into culture thatcontinually tells us to be anxious, to
continually incites us to be fearful,continually tells us that at the end of

(21:12):
the day, will we are farless able to deal with many of these
problems, many of these threats,and that they've basically presented to us,
then we imagine and that's really whatI think is particularly damaging. And then
that creates sometimes the kind of hystericalor or or reactions that are not warranted

(21:37):
by the kind of threats that wekind of confront And if I could make
this perhaps the last question, justdespite that hystoria, our kind of current
capacity to think about talk about mentalhealth mental well being is is probably big
than it's ever been. So isthat not working? Then if they if

(22:00):
the risk and theorem worry is higherthan it's everything. I'm just working how
that balances itself out. Well.I think there is a very interesting question,
because the way that it works,I think is that, you know,
we're often told that we don't talkabout mental health enough, and we
need to talk about mental health,But it seems to me that all that

(22:21):
we ever do at the moment isconstantly talk about mental health. If you
listen to the media or newspapers,and we've basically medicalized everyday alivee to the
point at which that virtually every problemthat you will have comes with a psychological
diagnosis. You know, you canbe shy, but you know, I
have sociophobia. If you're a littlebit active, you know, sort of

(22:44):
in the way that I was whenI was a child, then you have
attention deficit syndrome of some sort.So there's a variety of different syndromes that
attach themselves to just about anything.And I think that what that does is
it actually makes us even more disorientedthan we already were. And I actually
think that the promotion of mental healthas a principal problem our times creates its

(23:11):
own demand for mental health intervention.And the more you have counseling facilities available.
The more you tell people to comein and tell us about your problems,
the more mental health issues are highlighted, the more it actually becomes a
public health problem. And that's theperverse effect that mental health intervention and the

(23:37):
industrialization of mental health is actually turnedinto into a public health problem for which
we are responsible. It wasn't thefact that somehow people became sort of less
able to deal with with their mentalwell being then before. It's a cultural
accomplishment which incites us, which remindsus continually that our mental state is in

(23:57):
need or repair. It's created thefear in itself through the promotion. Yeah,
thank you very much, Thank youvery much. Just finally, if
people want to find out more aboutyour work, read some of your books,
how can they go about that?Please? But there's a number of
ways that I've got a website FrankFuredi dot com. But probably the most

(24:19):
interesting thing that people might find isthat I got what's called a sub stack,
it's called the Roots and Wings,where I write cliessays on different issues
or sociological significance and which they mightwant to check out. And of course,
if you look at Amazon. Mybooks are there as well, so
right, and they can follow youon Twitter as well. Absolutely, you

(24:41):
can follow you on Twitter and youcan criticize me. I react to my
my posts. Thank you so muchfor your time. I really really appreciate
it pleasure. Thanks very much forhaving me here. Thank you. The
Sociology Show podcast relies on the kindcontribution of sponsorship and donations. If you

(25:02):
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(25:23):
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