Parenting in America   /   Fall 2013   /    Parenting In America

The Cultural Contours of Parenthood

A Bibliographic Review

Stephanie Muravchik

illustration from Journeys through Bookland: A New and Original Plan for Reading Applied to the World's Best Literature for Children (1922); flickr.

All kinds of people are parents—rich and poor, pious and secular, married and single. America’s parenting culture reflects these differences. Economic, social, and other currents pull it, and parents, in different directions. Yet parents in the United States are also shaped by a common culture that includes ingrained ideas about the nature of children and family life, and all Americans must contend with the cultural complexities and contradictions of modern parenthood.

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