‘I Blame the Parents’: Analysing Popular Support for the Deficient Household Social Capital Transmission Thesis

Abstract

This article explores belief in parental deficiency as a causal factor of youth anti‐social behaviour and crime. Empirical interrogation of household interview data from a UK city considers whether there is widespread support for blaming parents. Somewhat surprisingly, lower‐income households and those containing young people, are found to be more likely to consider parental responsibility a problem. Most notably, a tendency to blame the parents strongly associates with a perception that people in the area do not treat each other with respect.

Parental Responsibility, Hyper-parenting, and the Role of Technology

“…(p. 409) Politicians have been responsible for much of the parent-blaming headlines. There has been an interesting shift in the political rhetoric from emphasis on family form (and particularly marriage), which was emphasized in the Conservative Government of the late 1980s, to the modern emphasis on parental practices (Collins, Cox and Leonard, 2014). Parents are seen as responsible for ensuring children become active citizens of the future (Janssen, 2015).…”

Motivations for adolescent offending and truancy from school: retrospective interviews with adults recently released from a custodial prison sentence in England

“…Likewise parental disengagement (sometimes termed lack of parental supervision) is also frequently related to juvenile truancy and delinquency ( Breda, 2015 ; Collins et al., 2014 ; Hutchinson et al., 2009 ) and development of longer term of criminogenic thinking ( Gonzalez et al., 2013 ; Hoeve et al., 2009 ). A child’s emotional stability and maturity develop according to the quality of domestic interactions and, if there are deficits within the home environment, there is likely to be a breakdown in social growth and educational receptivity ( Thompson and Little, 1983 ).…”