ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the construction of parentcraft programmes, and the extent to which the pressures which have shaped programmes in the past are relevant to the needs of parents in the present. The reader will have noted that among the main topics in the programme, none is directly concerned with the issues of expanding choice and social variation discussed at the beginning of this chapter. Social and geographical mobility bring young couples into contact with many different ways of bringing up children. People now argue about whether babies should be fed on demand; whether – and when – children should be left to cry; and at what age it is possible, or desirable, to punish a child, for what acts. Health visitors, in their professional capacity, see every day the varieties of ways in which parents can bring up children.
