What Is Parenthood?: Contemporary Debates about the Family

Epilogue

361 Epilogue Daniel Cere and Linda C. McClain In this epilogue, each of us will offer some reflections on this book’s investigation of critical questions about parenthood. Daniel Cere This book began as an attempt to contribute to the public conversation about parenthood by teasing out basic tensions in academic discourses and identifying unresolved questions that could orient further analysis and research. As it developed, participants expressed concerns that framing the conversation as a debate between two broad approaches could result in a narrow stereotyping of the intellectual complexity of the arguments at play in interdisciplinary work on parenthood. To that end, I conclude by addressing some misleading critiques of both the diversity perspective and the integrative perspective. Stereotypical Critiques of Diversity Accounts Proponents of diversity advance a corrosive form of relativism. Some proponents of diversity happily endorse a thoroughgoing cultural relativism. However, many gravitate toward “normative pluralist” accounts of parenthood . Such accounts do not deny the existence of integral human goods in the domain of parenting and child development but argue that a diverse flora of parental forms can foster a variety of basic goods critical to child well-being and flourishing. Martha Nussbaum clearly takes a diversity approach to the family, yet her theory would require that all forms of parenthood contribute to promoting certain basic goods or “central human capabilities,” including life, bodily integrity, cognitive and psychological development, freedom, autonomy, and self-respect.1 Normative pluralists would express moral outrage at forms of parenting that involve neglect or abuse. Pluralist accounts are sensitive to the growing body of research highlighting the critical importance of strong, stable attachments and high parental investment for healthy child development. They stress the importance of responsible adulthood, including the capacity to handle the 362 Epilogue daily social and financial challenges of raising children in difficult times and the critical value of dyadic or collaborative forms of adult bonds in parenting. Diversity accounts represent the imposition of a form of comprehensive liberalism, namely, a state-driven project to reengineer parenthood by penetrating liberal values deep into the soft-shelled texture of family life. Some pluralist accounts have a pronounced normative edge. Pluralists raise serious moral concerns about the array of traditional forms of parenthood that foster patterns of gender inequalities. They frequently argue for a channelling of public discourse on parenthood along lines that reflect a commitment to core values such as freedom, equality, capacity, autonomy, and respect for diversity. However, pluralist accounts are not wedded to strong versions of comprehensive liberalism. Softer versions argue the liberal state needs to exercise caution in this important domain of interpersonal life. Decisions relating to family matters and child rearing involve “the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy.”2 Accordingly, the state must tread gently, seeking to persuade and educate rather than to force or coerce. Finally, some accounts celebrate the rich diversity of family forms and resist political imposition of any liberal vision of parenthood. Strong multicultural accounts resist the promotion of Western liberal models of the family, arguing that this undermines rather than enriches meaningful diversity.3 In short, there are tensions within the diversity approach over the role of the state. Proponents of diversity are committed to sustained critique of the traditional heterosexual form of parenthood. Some diversity proponents may hope for a revolutionary deconstruction of the forces of heterosexism and heteronormativity, but most acknowledge the legitimate place of the traditional heterosexual parental bond in the ever-expanding map of family diversity. However, they dismiss the contention that parenting hinges critically on kin connections between children and their opposite-sex parents and maintain that good parenting practices can blossom in a variety of familial contexts. Some may provide social frames connecting children to opposite-sex pair-bonded parents; others may not. Diversity accounts promote the ongoing social disintegration and fragmentation of the various components of parenthood. Normative pluralist accounts aim at promoting social cohesion through including the diverse array of parental forms and fostering a shared ethos of responsibility, commitment, and caregiving. They argue that attempts to impose a more 363 Epilogue restrictive institutional framework on parenthood may contribute to social divisiveness because important sectors of the community may find themselves marginalized and excluded. Cohesion is built around common values and best parenting practices, not selective privileging or penalizing of specific family forms. Diversity accounts betray an...