Other people’s children: inclusive parenting in a diversified neighbourhood in Norway

ABSTRACT

This article explores how parents include other people’s children in intensive parenting practices. Increased diversification of Norwegian society calls attention to opportunities for social mobility and the risk of greater inequality. However, insufficient research has been carried out into how parents pursue parenting in such a context. How are parenting practices informed by increased diversity? Why and how do parents become engaged with other people’s children? This study explores the concept of intensive parenting, which researchers view as commonplace among Western middle-class parents, and which leads to individualizing parenting. It argues that for some, intensive parenting also incorporates inclusive parenting – a responsibility not only towards their own child, but a concern for and time investment in other people’s children. This parenting style is linked to a desire to create a more egalitarian society, and a belief that a child’s upbringing and future depends upon the wellbeing of other people’s children.

KEYWORDS:

• Intensive parenting
• other people’s children
• othering
• inclusive parenting
• egalitarianism
• diversity

Acknowledgements

All names of interviewees have been changed. We would like to thank all respondents for their time and insights, and the reviewers for their helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The concept intimate other resembles but is different from intimacies which is a notion related to politics of emotions.

2. In this article, we are focusing on the voices and practices of parents without a migration background. Migrant parents’ views and opinions will be the subject of a different paper.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Research Council of Norway (Norges Forskningsråd) [grant number 236956].