Most parents spend much time thinking about whether they are being good parents, or if they have been good parents: are they bringing up, or have they brought up their children 'properly', to be happy and successful members of society.
It is,however, often said there is no right way to bring up offspring and anthropology reveals that cultures across the world tend to have their own styles and methods so there are,indeed, many different ways of parenting.
If you look up standard western texts on parenting you are likely to come across these six stages/types of parenting:
Image-making (pregnancy). ...
Nurturing (birth to 18-24 months). ...
Authoritative (2 – 5 years). ...
Interpretive (5 years – adolescence). ...
Interdependent (during adolescence). ...
Departure (late adolescence to adulthood).
Surprisingly, the science of parenting, with the evidence from a plethora of studies, demonstrates that the influence of parents doesn't seem to matter much and that parenting outcomes are highly unpredictable. This is counter-intuitive as we would expect culture and individual upbringing to be crucial both in childrens' development and their subsequent journey through life. On the other hand, the rapid advances in genetics have revealed the power of inherited factors. Yet, even recognising the importance of DNA and the predispositions it can create, we would expect culture and parents' behaviour towards their children to be extremely influential.
The standard anthropological position would be to see a balance of influences between the forces of environment and inheritance – what is referred to as the nature versus nurture argument: so a balanced if not equal effect but, at least at present, an incalculable influence of either genes or parenting.
However, the science of parenting tells us the consequences of parenting are seen as so unpredictable that Professor Yuko Munakata, from the Department of Psychology and Centre for Mind and Brain at the University of California, compares parenting to a butterfly flapping its wings at the storm that is the child. Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean that parenting doesn't matter but in whatever way we evaluate the quality of any particular parenting this does not enable us to predict the outcome for the child.
I am sure we are all familiar with the stereotypical argument that “it was my (toxic) parents that ruined my life”. It always reminds me of Leonard Berstein's song Gee Officer Krupke from West Side Story:
Dear kindly Sergeant Krupke You gotta understand It's just our bringin' up-ke That gets us out of hand Our mothers all are junkies Our fathers all are drunks Golly Moses, naturally we're punks! Gee, Officer Krupke, we're very upset; We never had the love that every child oughta get We ain't no delinquents We're misunderstood Deep down inside us there is good!
And now the Duke of Sussex, Prince Harry, has reiterated this complaint against his parents (and grandparents). Though he claimed "we should not be pointing the finger" at anybody, one newspaper ran with the headline “Prince Harry 'threw family including Queen under bus' in latest interview, expert claims”.
With the rise of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, there is a trend to investigate and focus on a patient's childhood and, as reported in one academic article, “Anger toward parents is still at the heart of a great deal of therapy”.
Though the present state of science does not deny that parenting shapes children, the consequences of parenting are unpredictable so, please, parents stop blaming yourself for the way your children have turned out!