How (not) to feel: culture and the politics of emotion in the American parenting advice literature

Abstract

This interpretive critique of the US parenting advice literature explores the underlying cultural values and assumptions concerning emotion and power that are revealed in discourses on child behavior management. The analysis reveals a clear emphasis on the pedagogical and therapeutic role of an emotionally knowledgeable parent in relation to a deficient child. Parents are supposed to teach the child how to handle negative emotions through explicit strategies such as labeling, verbalization, and therapeutic listening, many of which are imbued with cultural and class bias. While emotions appear to be valued, the underlying subtext is one of emotional control and disengagement. The discourse can be read as a window on a contemporary politics of emotion in which freedom of expression and regulation of the self exist in uneasy tension, and in which emotions represent a dangerous terrain of social dis/order.

Keywords:

• discourse
• power
• emotion
• parenting
• culture
• childhood

Notes

1. The Commonwealth Survey of Parents with Young Children (1995–1996), discussed in Halfon, McLearn, and Schuster, (2002).

2. While an analysis of the international diffusion of emotion pedagogy in childrearing would be fascinating, it is beyond the scope of this article. This point is addressed more generally in another study focusing on how American ideals of ‘the individual child’ and child-centeredness have been received in Asian contexts (see Hoffman & Zhao, 2008).

3. As de Paul (2006) observes, ‘Working online, women are redefining parenting publications … rejecting the model of consumer information and child-rearing found in glossy magazines such as Parenting and Child … Alternative motherhood websites address topics that are off-limits or rarely acknowledged, or they focus on underserved audiences, such as African-American mothers.’

4. Indeed, as Simpson (1997) suggests, despite the great variety of sources of media advice available to parents in the USA, there are emerging areas of convergence across the literature, partly due to the consistency with which certain forms of ‘expertise’ inform such media. Themes identical to those I identify in the parenting magazines can be found in local newspapers (see, for example, Armengol, 2007), and on the internet, including national-level research and advocacy organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics (2001). Convergence on a generalized ‘pedagogical’ model of parent–child interaction among Americans was in fact identified by LeVine et al. some time ago (1994), although not specifically with regard to emotion. Weisner (2001) has also suggested the power of a pedagogical model of parenting that cuts across both mainstream parents and those who identified as ‘countercultural’ parents. This provides some support for the contention that superficial diversity can and often does mask a deeper level of conformity and convergence.

5. In a fascinating study on gendered discourse on emotion, Lutz (1990) shows how the theme of control is dominant in females’ discourse about emotion, suggesting that emotion is ‘dangerous’ (p. 73). While Lutz contrasts males and females on this point, the popular literature on ‘troubled boys’ appears to have similar ideational components with regard to control: in this case, boys are over-controlled and under-expressive, in contrast to females who are under-controlled and over-expressive (my terms). The more significant point is the overarching link established between emotion and control.

6. It should be noted that the value of a pedagogical approach to emotions is also present in the mainstream psychological research literature; this is one area in which there does seem to be a correspondence between scientific research and popular parenting advice. For example, ‘There is evidence that low-income mothers may not view emotionally charged conversations as opportunities for teaching their children about emotions … This may explain why low-income children use fewer internal state words than middle-income children and why higher socioeconomic status is positively related to affective knowledge’ (Garner, Jones, Gaddy, & Rennie, 1997, p. 38). It is clear in this passage that the higher socio-economic cultural habit of using emotionally charged situations as opportunities for teaching children how to handle emotions is viewed as more desirable.

7. Contrasting Chinese mothers with American mothers, Chao (1995) underscores the ubiquity of the therapeutic model among American mothers, finding that ‘the psychotherapy process has even permeated how adults relate to or communicate with children … European American mothers often played the role of psychotherapist in dealing with children's conflicts’ (p. 347).

8. Other techniques require a child to take a time-out regulated by the length of time it takes to complete an enforced activity, such as sing a song or read a book: ‘Send an angry child to cool off before he blows his stack. Lots of parents use time-outs as punishment. Better to use one as a chance to settle down and put the brakes on an approaching eruption. So when I see things starting to heat up with one of my kids, I tell him to go to his room and sing one whole song (at least three verses) or look at one whole book (page by page). By the time he finishes looking at a book in his room, he's able to come out and talk reasonably’ (Parenting, February 2006, p. 84).