Children should be seen and not heard might be the axiom that comes to mind when thinking of British parenting, but a study suggests the opposite is increasingly the case for modern mothers and fathers.
According to a study of 24 countries, Britons place less importance on instilling obedience in children than most other countries in the survey, and this has declined since the 1990s. Instead, they increasingly value hard work, independence and imagination.
Britons ranked 20th for regarding obedience and 23rd for responsibility as qualities that children should be taught. They ranked similarly low for prioritising thrift and saving money, and adherence to a religion.
Conversely, the UK was among the countries at the top of the table for placing a high importance on teaching children not to be selfish and to have an imagination and good manners.
Prof Bobby Duffy, the director of the Policy Institute at King’s College London who led the study, said the results are “important signals of what we value as a society” and reflect a cultural shift in the UK and many richer countries away “from a focus on security values to self-expression”.
“As more of our basic needs are met, we can focus more on being ourselves and be more open to new ideas. This has gone hand in hand with the decline of some key norms that have traditionally placed more value on obedience, such as attachment to organised religions, and is mirrored in our hugely increased acceptance of a wide range of lifestyles and characteristics, whether that’s on sexuality, ethnicity or religion.”
Duffy said the focus on hard work probably reflects “the increased emphasis on the importance of academic success in setting our kids up for an increasingly competitive job market”.
At the top of the table for prioritising obedience were Nigeria, Mexico and Egypt, while Japan, China, South Korea and Sweden ranked below the UK. South Korea, Norway, Japan and Sweden all prioritised imagination above the UK, with Indonesia and Egypt at the bottom. The US ranked lowest for prioritising good manners.
In the UK, imagination as a prized quality has risen from 18% to 37% since 1990, while hard work has leapt from 29% to 48%, and perseverance and independence both had a 10 percentage point increase. Yet while obedience peaked at 50% in 1998, it is now valued by just 11% of parents.
While all generations value obedience less than in the past, those from Gen Z, born between 1997 and 2013, care less about good manners and not being selfish than those who are older.
The UK also ranks low for believing that having children is a social duty, with just 11% of people holding this view, a figure lower only in the US and Sweden. On the other end are the Philippines, Nigeria and Indonesia, where more than three-quarters see child-bearing as a social duty.
British people also rank low for believing that children have a duty to care for their parents – only 31% think this, compared with 98% in China and Egypt.
The figures come as another study from the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) sheds light on modern parenting. The survey of 586 parents shows that one in four said employers had questioned their commitment to their job because of their parental responsibilities, while the same proportion thought they had been overlooked for promotions or high-profile projects.
One in five women said they were discriminated against during maternity leave, including being passed over for promotions and bonuses. One in three women have had to work part-time or change jobs to accommodate childcare – compared with just one in 10 men. Two in five men said they hadn’t experienced any challenges due to parenthood.
The CMI called for more flexibility in the workplace, saying the research “reveals the scale of exclusion” and that “women in particular are paying the parent penalty”.
