Untangling the mother knot: some thoughts on parents, children and philosophers of education

Abstract

Although children and parents often feature in philosophical literature on education, the nature of the parent–child relationship remains occluded by the language of rights, duties and entitlements. Likewise, talk of ‘parenting’ in popular literature and culture implies that being a parent is primarily about performing tasks. Drawing on popular literature, moral philosophy and philosophy of education, I make some suggestions towards articulating a richer philosophical conception of this relationship, and outline some of the implications, questions and problems this raises for philosophers of education.

Keywords:

• Education
• Motherhood
• Parenting

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Ruth Cigman, David Bridges, Richard Smith, Paul Standish and Stein Wivestad for their extremely helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.

Notes

Note

1. I am grateful to David Bridges for suggesting this distinction to me.