Hunger Is a Great Discipline

Indulgent Parenting Leads to a Nanny State

There are at least two perspective on offer when it comes to the nurture and raising of children: the first is the world-views requiring parental indulgence; the second is world views requiring parental discipline.

Whilst it is a generalisation-- we trust not a hasty one--the Chattering Classes and the Commentariat generally favour parental and societal indulgence when it comes to raising children.  The little tykes are assumed to be nascent adults and the more they are treated as if they were adults, the more quickly they will mature.  In contrast, those adults whose parenting involves consistent rules, structure, and discipline are regarded as harmful agents, implicitly guilty of child abuse.

A recent newspaper piece illustrates this great divide.  The issue was food--the right food--for children.  Some parents complain that whilst they know sugar-saturated food is bad for their bairns, the whole world conspires against them

Ask any parent, in any checkout line, and they'll tell you: the supermarket is a battleground. From the shiny pink packaging and fun fonts to the kid's height placement of certain products, food marketers are targeting the child consumer – not the adult purchaser. But that manipulation extends beyond the grocery store. [Stuff]

The entire supermarket experience (apparently) is constructed around the child being pushed along in a supermarket trolley having a sovereign right of choice as to what he or she will eat.  An entire industry built around a philosophy of parental indulgence.  Imagine that.  Those who know better than others--the academic elites--are calling for rules, regulations, restrictions, so that children will not get to see what they might otherwise decide to choose.

"There is plenty of evidence showing that unhealthy food marketing does impact food preferences for children," says Stefanie Vandevijvere, from Auckland University's school of population health. "So it's quite powerful, but it's also pervasive, because the integrated marketing nowadays engages children across multiple media. It's not just TV, it's social media, it's on food packages in supermarkets, it's everywhere."

Vandevijvere is the co-author of a just-published New Zealand Medical Journal article that calls for compulsory regulations to protect children against unhealthy food marketing.  "Reducing childhood obesity is now a high priority for Government and New Zealand society, and foremost in these efforts should be getting serious about protecting children from being targeted by sophisticated marketing for the very foods and beverages that are making them fat."

In other words, indulgent parenting is a failure and has ended up damaging children.   More discipline and control is needed.  But, hark!  According to Vandevijvere and her cohort, the necessary discipline must not come from parents, but from the Government and Society.  So much for the "indulgent parenting" world perspective.  It leads to an uber-nanny state that is anything but indulgent.

Then there is the alternative--parental world views which require that parents exercise disciplined control of their children to train them into adult behaviour, outlooks, and actions.  Under this alternative and competing world-view, child rearing necessarily involves training children to be responsible as adults.  Training, in turn, necessarily involves disciplining children.  Some things are right.  Some are wrong.  And so forth.  What a perfectly bizarre, if not neanderthal idea.

Behold the radical, super-sophisticated, intelligent and wise mother:

Lou Van Tongeren is a 32-year-old mother of two boys. She runs Christchurch Under 5s Collective, a Facebook resource set up, post-earthquake, connecting families with places to go and things to do.  Food, says Van Tongeren, is a major parental preoccupation.  "I just met a friend in the park, and she'd come from the library – in the cafe, all along the counter, at child height, they have jars of lollies. Why do they do this to us?! There's just tantrum after tantrum while you're waiting for your coffee."

Her boys Max, 4, and Art, 17 months, are "mostly" sugar-free at home. She says kid-friendly packaging and the offer of games or toys with food is a worry. "You don't need to make treats more fun."  However: "I think you just have to be smart, and you just have to have your own boundaries. You've got to be really clear with your kids from the beginning that those things aren't part of your normal diet. And just because it looks fun and attractive, doesn't mean it's out of bounds, but it's not something you can have every day, or every week."

Lou Van Tongeren says food is a major preoccupation for parents - luckily her boys Art, 17 months, and Max, 4, like fruit. Photo: Kirk Hargreaves/Fairfax NZ

Van Tongeren says parents must take responsibility.  "If a company wants to put out a cereal in a glittery box and it looks fantastic, it's still a parent who puts it in the shopping trolley and buys it. And if you can't cope with your child having a bit of a meltdown at the supermarket, then that's still not the company's fault . . . at the end of the day, children shouldn't get any say about what's going into the grocery trolley." [Emphasis, ours.]

Here's a radical thought.  If you are taking your kids to the supermarket whilst shopping, and your children are not regularly melting down in puerile outrage at your persistent, firm refusals to indulge their little fancies, you are failing as a parent.  Your indulgence towards your children, and your self-indulgent craving for "peace at any price" is where the problem really lies.

Full marks to Lou Van Tongeren.