Internalising discourses of parental blame: Voices from the field

This paper investigates the intertwining of a discourse of parental blame with the legacy of institutionalised neglect and the current roll-back of state support and services in two of Ireland s most socially marginalised and economically disadvantaged communities. In the course of fieldwork conducted to explore narratives of community safety, the authors were struck by the continual, unprompted emergence of a divisive and enduring belief that community problems could be primarily traced to bad parents and bad parenting . This belief was expressed by diverse members of the communities involved including young people, young and middle-aged parents, elderly people and those without children. A similar discourse was espoused by representatives of state agencies, community workers, members of the police force, and in the media.   This willingness to position people and parents living in extremely challenging conditions as being responsible for the creation, maintenance and continuance of these conditions is deeply problematic. This article argues / identifies that the internalisation of a powerfully evocative discourse of blame works to absolve the state of all responsibility for the conditions in which marginalised communities are forced to live; it legitimises current and future cutbacks by portraying such communities as irresponsible and as the creators of their own problems; it distorts and distracts discussion away from necessary and critical questioning of state accountability by promoting a reductive, individualised understanding of what are complex, collective responsibilities; it encourages people to blame each other for local problems, intensifying and deepening community divides and increasing willingness to allow punitive measures to be taken against bad parents . The internalising of discourses of culpability operates to the benefit of the state, where bad parents are understood to be undeserving citizens, and where those who benefit least from a society based on the tenets of neoliberalism are further disenfranchised beneath the cover of a discourse of community and parental empowerment.   Finally, we argue that the ability of the state to cut back social funding and to roll back on previous commitments depends, in a large part, on the willingness of the wider community to believe that responsibility for long term social and economic marginalisation and associated problems rests, not with the state, but with bad and undeserving citizens (Adair, 2005; Edelman, 1998: Lens, 2002; Welsh & Parsons 2006). Promoting that willingness is achieved through continual media and public sphere portrayals of the poor, and particularly of working class parents, as dangerously and overly fertile (Tyler, 2008; Wilson & Huntington, 2005), as non-contributors to prosperity and as over contributors to decline (Skeggs 2005; Morris, 1994; Renvall & Vehkalahti, 2002; Hayward & Yar, 2006: Law, 2006; Levitas, 2003).