The terror of explicitness: philosophical remarks on the idea of a parenting contract

Abstract

The new idea of a ‘parenting contract’, explicitly taking as its point of reference the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, is meant primarily to protect children's rights, and specifically the right to a proper upbringing. The nature of the parent–child relationship is thus drawn into the discourse of rights and duties. Although there is much to be said for parents explicitly attending to their children's upbringing, something of the uniqueness of the parent–child relationship seems to be occluded by the language of rights and duties as that relationship becomes narrowed down to the confines of a contractual agreement. What comes to be foregrounded in the parent–child relationship is a defence of the various parties’—the parents’ and the child's—interests. By drawing on the work of Annette Baier, we argue that this has considerable consequences in terms of trust and distrust, and parental engagement. It is questioned whether the concept of the parenting contract brings about the positive climate of engagement which it is meant to promote.

Keywords:

• Parenting
• Rights and duties
• Contract
• Child-rearing
• Children's rights
• Baier

Notes

Notes

1. ‘CFS’ is a fictional institution.

2. There is an important translation issue here. The original Dutch concept is ‘opvoedingscontract’. ‘Opvoeding’, literally translated, means ‘bringing up’ or ‘raising’. It refers to the normal course of life in a family, to what is going on between parents and their children. As such, ‘opvoedingscontract’ would have to be translated as: ‘contract on bringing up one's children’. ‘Parenting’ does not fully capture the meaning of ‘opvoeding’ (bringing up), not in the least because ‘parenting’ refers to an activity, to something parents do intentionally. It has been pointed out to us that ‘parenting’ is a fairly recent concept, which is, furthermore, already part of the discourse that is being discussed in this paper.

3. See http://www.gezinsbond/.be for more information (in Dutch).

4. We would like to thank the members of the Gregynog Conference of Philosophy of Education (June 2007) for their comments and suggestions on this article.