What Is Intense Parenting?

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Theodore happened to hear a couple of children swearing, and it's concluded that has never happened before in british society. Parents spend far more time with their children to day than they did in any other generation. Western parenting is phenomenally intensive. A working mother in the 20 first century spends about two, three hours more a day looking after her children than a mother who stayed at home in 19 seventies.

Why are there so many Chinese maths and music prodigies? Because Chinese mothers believe schoolwork and music practice come first, that an A-minus is a bad grade, that sleepovers, TV and computer games should never be allowed and that the only activity their children should be permitted to do are ones in which they can eventually win a medal - and that medal must be gold. These methods certainly seem to get results but do they make for the rounded individuals Western parents are striving to bring up? Isn't it better that our children should be happy rather than burnt-out brain boxes? Who's right and who's wrong? In this debate from June 2011, Amy Chua, author of the best-selling Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, and Theodore Dalrymple, the writer and psychologist, speak for the motion. Justine Roberts, co-founder of Mumsnet, and Frank Furedi, emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent and parenting expert, speak against the motion. The debate was chaired by columnist and broadcaster Jenni Russell

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