The emotionally priceless child 2.0
The emotionally priceless child 2.0
- March 11, 2026
- Nina Bandelj, sociology, shares her work in this Q&A with Culture Study’s Anne Helen Petersen
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“ANOTHER INTERVIEW ABOUT INTENSIVE PARENTING PRACTICES? Indeed! We're gonna keep talking about intensive parenting until it's no longer the root of so much of what societally ails us! It reproduces income inequalities! It reifies our worst individualist tendencies! It's implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) tied to racial hierarchies! And most important of all: it makes kids and parents weary, just generally unhappy, and anxious. As we invest more in the theoretical success of (our own) children, we invest less in the overarching health and happiness of society as a whole.
Quite frankly, it pisses me off — all the more so because I absolutely understand why people feel like they have to parent this way. Sociologist Nina Bandelj understands that too — especially as a parent herself. In her new book, Overinvested, she weaves together the history of parenting discourse and dozens of interviews with contemporary parents to talk about the punishing "emotional economy" of parenting today (with "the emotionally priceless child 2.0" at its center).”
Continue reading: https://www.patreon.com/posts/emotionally-2-0-152626748
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