Intensive Parenting in High-Resource Multi-Child Families

• Main Author: Zlata Yevgenevna Dorofeeva
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Russian Academy of Sciences, Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology 2021-03-01
• Series: Интеракция. Интервью. Интерпретация
• Subjects: high-resource multi-child families; intensive mothering; intensive parenting; children education; human capital
• Online Access: https://www.inter-fnisc.ru/index.php/inter/article/view/5922/5743

<p>Current views about parenting involves the use of expert knowledge in the field of education and upbringing. The available variety of information and opportunities in this area requires parents to engage actively not only at the stage of choosing an educational trajectory for their children, but also in the process of their implementation. Large families with a fairly high income and education set a high educational level for their children, embarking on the path of modern intensive parenting, they use their own resources to achieve results. However, it is obvious that large families, taking into account the number of children and the accumulated experience of parents, have some features in this area. Thus, the work shows that parenting experience in such families allows a more rational approach to the choice of activities and their number, while carefully selecting educational institutions for their children, often depending on the abilities and needs of each child, creating individual educational trajectories. It is also noted that an important component of the educational process is the formation of an intra-family educational environment, which in large families has the ability to self-regulate and recreate. The chosen strategy of intensive parenting, which involves a significant amount of investment in the educational and upbringing process of children, requires focusing resources on children, including through the underutilization of the human capital of parents in the labor market (usually mothers). However, this strategy is considered as the most rational by parents.</p>