Parenting and Excessive Guidance

Phillip Larkin had a bleak view of parents.

‘They fuck you up your mum and dad and give you all the faults they had’

Dov Fox also paints a bleak picture of modern parenting (1). He argues when rearing children parents have a duty to do two things. They have a duty to guide their children, e.g. educate them. They also have a duty to accept them for what they are, e.g. love them. This latter duty means the aspirations of our children impose limits on what we may will for them. There is a tension between these two duties and parents should attempt to balance them. Parental attention deficit disorder occurs when parents do not get this balance correct. Fox points out modern parenting pays too much attention to guidance as opposed to acceptance. It is important to note too much attention can also be paid to acceptance. James Flynn argues that, in part, the gap in the IQ of black and other children may be due excessive acceptance rather than genetic factors (2). However in this posting I want to examine Fox’s point concerning excessive guidance.

Initially parents don’t guide their children. Parents should simply accept, love and nurture them. As a child starts to develop her parents should start to guide her. The emphasis on guidance will grow as the child develops. Perhaps as children become teenagers the balance between guidance and acceptance will shift again with greater emphasis again being placed on acceptance. I agree with Fox that excessive guidance is a bad thing and that parents who give excessive guidance act badly even if their motives are good. However excessive guidance need not always involve good motives and some parents substitute their own motives in place of their children, see substitute success syndrome in (3). The question to be addressed is this if we must guide our children at what stage does good guidance become excessive guidance? I will examine this question, as Fox does, by firstly considering pre natal and secondly post natal guidance.

There may be various forms of pre natal guidance. I will only examine genetic enhancement as I believe my comments on genetic enhancement apply equally to other forms of pre natal guidance. Fox argues that genetic enhancement is unwelcome but not because natural genetic combination is superior to an engineered combination of genes.

‘My argument, to be clear, is not that the randomness of genetic recombination is a moral good in itself.’ (4)

What is wrong with an engineered combination of genes according to Fox is as follows.

‘Rather, it is because genetic engineering is the ultimate manifestation of the triumph of excessive parental guidance that has become all too familiar in our time’ (5).

It might be questioned whether genetic engineering is a form of parental guidance. It is certainly a form of choosing some of the characteristics of an unborn child, perhaps a child that has yet to be conceived, but is choosing a form of guidance? It seems to me that guidance requires something to guide, in this context an existing child. Moreover it seems that, provided a child has a life that is worth living, genetic enhancement does no harm that child. An un-enhanced child would be a different child. An interesting discussion of this issue is found in ‘Parfit (6). It appears to follow that genetic engineering is not the ultimate manifestation of the triumph of excessive parental guidance as Fox argues. Parents may use genetic engineering to choose the kind of children they will have; this choosing is not guidance of any sort. Nonetheless Fox might give a second closely related reason as to why genetic engineering should be discouraged. He might argue even if genetic engineering is not a form of excessive guidance that parents who genetically engineer their children are more likely to excessively guide their children in later life. It might then be further argued for this reason genetic engineering should be discouraged. However even if parents who might genetically engineer their children were discouraged from doing so it does not automatically follow that these parents would be any less likely to excessively guide any children they might have. I accept genetic engineering should be discouraged if it can be shown that it encourages excessive parental guidance. However it seems to me that parents who excessively guide their children would continue to do so even if they were discouraged from genetic enhancement. The reasons, why parents might excessively guide children, lies in the parent’s own psychological makeup rather than whether they are able to genetically engineer their children’s future. The above suggests that Fox is wrong to believe there are reasons based on excessive parental guidance to discourage the genetic enhancement of children. Accepting my argument of course does not mean that genetic engineering is desirable. I agree with Fox when he states

‘Parental attention calls for moral scepticism towards the potential worth of those characteristics parents would seek to target for enhancement or eradication’ (7).

However my scepticism is not based on parental deficit disorder.

Fox approaches post natal enhancement in connection with excessive guidance as follows.

‘The parental attention approach suggests that certain enhancements – practices that aim to modify human form or functioning beyond what is required to sustain good health or restore the normal workings of the human mind and body – call for careful reflection into parental attitudes, depending on the particulars of the child’  (8).

The best way to achieve these ends would usually be to accept the child for what she is. However as Fox points out in certain contexts some interventions are morally required, for instance the removal of a child from a toxic environment caused by lead paint. Such interventions are acceptable even if these cause profound changes in the child’s personality. Fox would regard any intervention which changes a child’s personality but leads to normal functioning as acceptable, perhaps even mandatory. Fox would regard any other intervention which changes a child’s personality as unacceptable. It would seem Fox adopts a similar approach to parental guidance. Any guidance beyond that needed to maintain a child’s normal physical and mental health would be regarded by him as excessive. Moreover he thinks parents should simply accept the personality of a normal child and not attempt to change her personality by any guidance. The trouble with this approach is how to define normal. For instance is the prescription of Ritalin to a child for ADHD a means of aiding the child’s mind to function normally or a failure to accept the child as she is? One way to deal with this problem might be to consider any intervention as undesirable which would impede a child from developing and maintaining a conception of herself as the central character in her life story. It would seem Fox would endorse this approach (9). However it seems to me that excessive guidance does not necessarily destroy a child’s concept of herself as the central character in her own life. An excessively guided child might rationalise the changes brought about in her life in two ways. She may see her character as struggling to achieve these changes. She may see her character as struggling to accommodate these changes. In both of these scenarios her concept of herself as the central character in her life story remains in spite of the excessive parental guidance. However the above approach might be modified as follows. Any intervention would be undesirable if it would impede a child from developing and maintaining a conception of herself as the author, at least in part, of her life story.

This modified approach suggests if parents are to avoid excessive guidance they should accept the things their child sees as central to her life. The reason for this being the things a child sees as central to her life, the things she cares about, are the things she authors her life by. Authorship implies autonomy. It appears if this approach was adopted then parents should respect their child’s autonomy. If parents should respect a child’s autonomy it might also appear to strictly limit the guidance they should give to this child. I believe that this second appearance is illusory. It is generally accepted that people should respect other people’s autonomy. However children are not fully autonomous. Indeed at an early age children are not autonomous at all. A child’s autonomy develops as she matures. I believe good parenting requires that parents should assist their children become autonomous. The question I now wish to address is this, if it is accepted that parents should assist their children become autonomous, how does this affect the balance between accepting their children as they are and giving them guidance?

I have noted above when a child is very young her parents should simply love, nurture and accept her. As the child develops so her parent should start to guide her. Later on as the child starts to become autonomous her parents must again place greater emphasis on accepting her. The above suggests the balance between accepting a child and guiding her changes as the child matures. Good parenting calls for parents to be aware of this fact. It might be thought, if parents assist their children to become autonomous, that as these children mature the need for guidance shrinks dramatically. This is not so. Assisting children become autonomous is not simply achieved by giving more mature children ample choices and accepting these choices. According to Frankfurt,

‘With total freedom there can be no individual identity. This is because an excess of choice impairs the will.’ (10)

Being autonomous means an agent has ideals or something she cares about in order to let her make meaningful choices. It follows assisting children become autonomous involves parents both helping children obtain standards and ideals which permit them to make meaningful choices and the opportunity to make these choices. The process of helping children obtain standards and ideals of necessity involves guidance. It is impossible for a child, or any one else for that matter, to obtain a value simply by choosing randomly without some reference point. Any value obtained in this way is obtained wantonly. It follows if parents simply accept their children and fail to help them obtain some standards and ideals they risk that their children will behave wantonly as noted by Flynn above. Fox is right to note the dangers of excessive guidance but a lack of guidance also involves significant dangers. Competitive parenting of the kind noted by Fox and parenting in which parents seek to attain their own success through their children’s lives should be regarded as unacceptable. Good parenting involves some guidance even as a child matures. How should good parents approach this guidance? There is no algorithm for good parenting. It follows good parenting is akin to a craft that must be learnt in part by experience. It seems self evident that parents should bring good attitudes towards this learning experience. One such good attitude as suggested by Fox is to be aware of the need to balance acceptance and guidance. Another good attitude is to be aware this balance changes as the child matures. Lastly parents must reflect on the guidance they offer. I noted above when considering genetic enhancement Fox thinks parents should be morally sceptical towards these enhancements. I believe parents should adopt this sceptical attitude to any values they seek to inculcate in their children. Nevertheless a failure to inculcate any values in maturing children is a failure in parental attention. If such attitudes are adopted parents then parents should not ‘fuck up’ their children as Larkin suggests they do.

1.      Dov Fox, 2008, Parental Attention Deficit Disorder, Journal of Applied Philosophy 25(3)

2.      Flynn, 2008, Where Have All the Liberals Gone, Race Class and Ideals in America, Cambridge University Press.

3.      Michael Slote, 2007, The Ethics of Care and Empathy, Routledge, page 57.

4.      Fox, page 250.

5.      Fox, page 251.

6.      Parfit, 1984, Reasons and Persons, Oxford, section 122.

7.      Fox, page 248.

8.      Fox, page 252.

9.      Fox, page, 254.

10. Frankfurt, 1999, Necessity Volition and Love, Cambridge, page 110.