Teenagers and their Parents: Parental Time and Parenting Style—What are the Issues?

Two recent reports, from the ippr and UNICEF have provided disturbing evidence on the behaviour and well‐being of young people in the UK. The ippr's Report suggests that a significant explanatory factor is the lack of time children spend with parents and other adults. But is mere ‘presence’ the key? The paper briefly reviews the possibilities parents in the UK have to spend time with their children by exploring how much and when they work in relation to parents in other European countries, and goes on to report on evidence from interviews with parents and children, which signal the importance of parenting style. I suggest that time with children is not unimportant, which has implications for Government's decision not to extend the right to request flexible working patterns to parents with older children, but that it is far from being the only factor at stake. The increasing difficulties parents face in negotiating the transition to independence with their teenage children indicate a need for parenting to be on the policy agenda.     

Childcare Policies and the Politics of Choice

Governments have intervened in two basic ways on childcare: via the provision of leaves to care (usually taken by mothers) and the provision or (often only partial) financing of childcare services. These policy options reflect the fundamental debate on how young children should be cared for. Labour has developed both policy areas since 1997, but there is a question mark over how far mothers and fathers have a ‘real choice’ to work and/or to care. Parents' choice in this policy area is a sensitive political issue and, this article suggests, requires a careful balancing of policy instruments. Policy goals may conflict with preferences and there is also the difficult issue that parents' choices may prejudice their future welfare in a work/welfare system that is tending to assume that there will be increasing capacity for self‐provisioning.