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Parenting: Science and Practice

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Parenting: Science and Practice

Marc H. Bornstein
Version of record first published: 22 Jun 2011.

To cite this article: Marc H. Bornstein (2001): Parenting: Science and Practice,
Parenting: Science and Practice, 1:1-2, 1-4

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 PARENTING: SCIENCE AND PRACTICE Copyright © 2001, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
January–June 2001 Volume 1 Numbers 1 and 2 Pages 1–4

Parenting: Science and Practice

Marc H. Bornstein
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Each day more than three quarters of a million adults around the world ex-
perience the rewards and challenges as well as the joys and heartaches of
becoming parents. Of course, everyone who has lived has had parents; the
human race succeeds because of parenting. Parenting is a subject about
which people hold strong opinions but about which too little solid infor-
mation or considered reflection exists. Parenting: Science and Practice in-
tends to redress this imbalance.
Parenting is, perhaps first and foremost, a functional status in the life cy-
cle. Parents issue as well as protect, care for, and represent their progeny;
indeed, parenthood is the “final common pathway” to childhood over-
sight and caregiving. Parenthood is therefore a job that has the child as its
primary object of attention and action. But parenting also has real conse-
quences for parents themselves. Parenting: Science and Practice encom-
passes the broad themes of who are parents; whom parents parent; the
scope of parenting and its many effects; the determinants of parenting; and
the nature, structure, and meaning of parenthood for parents.

WHO ARE PARENTS, WHOM DO PARENTS PARENT

Many individuals “parent” children. In most minds, mothers are unique,

the roles of mother are universal, and motherhood is essential to the devel-
opment of children. Historically, fathers’ social and legal claims and re-
sponsibilities have often been preeminent. In reality, in most cultures
mothers and fathers divide the labors of parenting and engage their chil-
dren by assuming different and complementary responsibilities and by de-
voting different resources to children. The modern world has also wit-
nessed the emergence of striking permutations in parenting, notably in the
rise of single-parent households, divorced and blended families, and un-
married teen parents.
Beyond mothers and fathers, pluralistic caregiving is common and sig-
nificant in the lives of children, and at one or another time various people
other than biological or adoptive parents assume responsibility for meet-
ing children’s developmental needs. They include other members of the
 2 BORNSTEIN

parents’ household or kin group, like siblings and grandparents, as well as

nonfamilial caregivers, sometimes in institutional settings such as daycare
centers. Children’s constellation of caregivers is rich and multifaceted. Par-
enting: Science and Practice embraces this plurality of caregivers when in
loco parentis.
Infants, toddlers, children in middle-childhood, and adolescents are the
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common objects of parenting attention and action. Parents also caregive to

special populations: multiples, preterm, ill, developmentally delayed or
talented, aggressive or withdrawn children. All those who are parented,
and parenting appropriate to different ages, stages, and populations, are
subject matter for Parenting: Science and Practice.

THE SCOPE OF PARENTING

Children do not — and cannot — grow up as solitary individuals; parenting

constitutes an all-encompassing ecology for development. From the start,
parenting is a “24/7” job. Parenting formally begins during or before preg-
nancy and can continue throughout the life span: Practically speaking, for
most, once a parent, always a parent.
Parents intend much for their children and socialize them in myriad
ways, both direct and indirect. Direct effects are of two kinds: genetic and ex-
periential. Of course, biological parents endow a significant and pervasive
genetic makeup to their children. Beyond genetic endowment, experience is
a principal stimulus to development, and parent-provided experiences that
directly influence children commonly take the form of beliefs and behaviors.
Parenting beliefs include perceptions, expectations, attributions, atti-
tudes, knowledge, ideas, goals, and values about all aspects of child-
rearing and child development. These beliefs serve many functions: They
may generate and shape parental behaviors, mediate the effectiveness of
parenting, or help to organize parenting. Parenting behaviors are the tan-
gible experiences parents provide children. Parents meet the biological,
physical, and health requirements of children; they promote children’s
wellness and prevent their illness. Parents interact with children socially:
They help children to regulate their own affect, emotions, and morality,
and they manage, monitor, and mediate interpersonal exchanges children
use to form meaningful and sustained relationships. Parents stimulate
children to engage and understand the environment and to enter the
world of learning: They teach, describe, and demonstrate, and they pro-
vide opportunities for children to observe, to imitate, and to learn. Parents
provision, organize, and arrange children’s home and local environments
and the media to which children are exposed. Parents also manage child
 EDITORIAL 3

development vis-à-vis childcare, school, and the worlds of medicine and

law, as well as other social institutions through their active citizenship.
Caregiving principles and practices constitute direct effects of parenting.
Parents indirectly influence children as well — for example, through their
relationships with each other and their local or larger community. Parents’
bearing toward their spouse and their marriage, as well as their associations
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with larger social networks, modify their interactions with their children
and, in turn, their children’s development. All of these concerns — genes
and experiences, beliefs and behaviors, direct and indirect effects — are sub-
ject matter for Parenting: Science and Practice.
Parents are ordinarily the most consistent and caring people in the lives
of children. In everyday life, however, parenting does not always go right
or well: Sometimes parents do not adequately provide for their children;
sometimes parents abuse or neglect children. So parenting can be troubled,
challenged, and problematic. But information, education, and support
programs can remedy these ills. If parents possess knowledge, skills, and
supports, if they have their own emotional and physical needs well met,
they can parent their children positively and effectively. Parenting: Science
and Practice is about positive as well as negative dimensions of parenting,
and how to right the bad and enhance the good. It is also about the devel-
opment and expression of parenting.

DETERMINANTS OF PARENTING

The origins of parenting are complex, but certain factors seem to be of para-
mount importance. Children affect parenting: Notable are their more obvi-
ous characteristics, like age, gender, and physical state or appearance, but
more subtle ones like temperament, cognitive ability, and other individual
differences factors are also instrumental. Some aspects of parenting are in-
fluenced by the very biological makeup of human beings; related ones are
associated with pregnancy, parturition, or prenatal events. Parenting also
draws on transient and enduring physical, personality, and intellectual
characteristics of the individual — including vital abilities and stamina, af-
fective components like commitment, empathy, and positive regard for chil-
dren, and cognitive considerations such as the hows, whats, and whys of
caring for children. Finally, a full understanding of what it means to parent
depends on the ecologies in which parenting takes place. Beyond the nu-
clear family, parents are embedded in, influence, and are themselves af-
fected by larger social systems. These include family configuration; both for-
mal and informal support systems; community ties and work; social,
educational, legal, medical, and governmental institutions; economic class,
 4 BORNSTEIN

designed and natural ecology; and culture. Generational, social, and media
images of parenting, children, and family life — handed-down or co-con-
structed — play significant roles in shaping parenting beliefs and guiding
parenting behaviors. Parenting: Science and Practice is concerned with all fac-
tors that influence parenting.
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PARENTHOOD IS FOR PARENTS

Although parenting is giving and responsibility, parenthood has its own

intrinsic pleasures, privileges, and profits as well as frustrations, fears, and
failures. The transition to parenting is formidable; the intrinsic stages of
parenthood are formative. Parenthood can enhance psychological devel-
opment, self-confidence, and sense of well-being. Parenthood also affords
opportunities to confront new challenges and to test and display diverse
competencies. Parents can derive considerable and continuing pleasure in
their relationships and activities with their children. But parenting is also
fraught with small and large stresses and disappointments. In the final
analysis, parents receive a great deal “in kind” for parenting — they are of-
ten recipients of unconditional love, they gain skills, and they even pre-
tend to immortality — but they also risk much and expose themselves
broadly. We don’t often enough remind ourselves of the many positives
that accompany parenting; we don’t address the many negatives to find
solutions often enough either. Parenting: Science and Practice will.