Open Research Online The Open University’s repository of research publications and other research outputs Troubling children’s families: who’s troubled and why? Approaches to inter-cultural dialogue Journal Item How to cite: Ribbens McCarthy, Jane and Gillies, Val (2017). Troubling children’s families: who’s troubled and why? Approaches to inter-cultural dialogue. Sociological Research Online, 23(1) pp. 219–244. For guidance on citations see FAQs. (cid:13)c 2018 The Authors Version: Version of Record Link(s) to article on publisher’s website: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1177/1360780417746871 Copyright and Moral Rights for the articles on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. For more information on Open Research Online’s data policy on reuse of materials please consult the policies page. oro.open.ac.uk 746871 research-article2017 SRO0010.1177/1360780417746871Sociological Research OnlineRibbens McCarthy and Gillies Special Section: Troubling Families Sociological Research Online Troubling Children’s Families: 2018, Vol. 23(1) 219 –244 © The Author(s) 2017 Reprints and permissions: Who Is Troubled and Why? sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav httpDs:O//dIo: i1.o0r.g1/1107.171/1773/610376087084014717774466887711 Approaches to Inter-Cultural journals.sagepub.com/home/sro Dialogue Jane Ribbens McCarthy The Open University, UK Val Gillies University of Westminster, UK Abstract This article draws on multidisciplinary perspectives to consider the need and the possibilities for inter-cultural dialogue concerning families that may be seen by some to be ‘troubling’. Starting from the premise that ‘troubles’ are a ‘normal’ part of children’s family lives, we consider the boundary between ‘normal’ troubles and troubles that are troubling (whether to family members or others). Such troubling families potentially indicate an intervention to prevent harm to less powerful family members (notably children). On what basis can such decisions be made in children’s family lives, how can this question be answered across diverse cultural contexts, and are all answers inevitably subject to uncertainty? Such questions arguably reframe and broaden existing debates about ‘child maltreatment’ across diverse cultural contexts. Beyond recognizing power dynamics, material inequalities, and historical and contemporary colonialism, we argue that attempts to answer the question on an empirical basis risk a form of neo-colonialism, since values inevitably permeate research and knowledge claims. We briefly exemplify such difficulties, examining psychological studies of childrearing in China and the application of neuroscience to early childhood interventions in the United Kingdom. Turning to issues of values and moral relativism, we also question the possibility of an objective moral standard that avoids cultural imperialism but ask whether cultural relativism is the only alternative position available. Here, we briefly explore other possibilities in the space between ‘facile’ universalism and ‘lazy’ relativism. Such approaches bring into focus core philosophical and cultural questions about the possibilities for ‘happiness’, and for what it means to be a ‘person’, living in the social world. Throughout, we centralize theoretical and conceptual issues, drawing on the work of the philosopher François Jullien to recognize the immense complexities inter-cultural dialogue entails in terms of language and communication. Corresponding author: Jane Ribbens McCarthy, Department of History, Religious Studies, Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK. Email: [email protected] 220 Sociological Research Online 23(1) Keywords Advaita, child maltreatment, children’s Rights, cross-cultural childhoods, family troubles, feminist ethics of care, inter-cultural dialogue, moral relativism, personhood, Ubuntu Introduction In this article, we centralize the desirability of dialogue in several respects: between academic sociological research focused on ‘mainstream’ family lives and problem- focused family research oriented to the concerns of social work and social policy, between multiple disciplines, and across diverse cultural contexts around the world. The first dialogue has driven previous work on the notion of ‘family troubles’ (Evans et al., 2018; Francis, 2015; Ribbens McCarthy et al., 2013a, 2018), and our discussion here takes this forward to focus on dialogue across diverse cultures, drawing on work from multiple disciplines. Previous work (Ribbens McCarthy et al., 2013b) thus argued the importance of recognizing that ‘troubles’–understood as changes and challenges–are a ‘normal’ part of children’s family lives, although obscured by notions and aspirations of idealized ‘childhood’ and ‘families’. This perspective inevitably disturbs the boundary between troubles considered ‘normal’ or ‘ordinary’ and troubles considered sufficiently ‘troubling’–whether to family members themselves or to others–to warrant an interven- tion to prevent ‘harm’ to less powerful family members (in this case, children). In this article, we centralize the question of how to determine where such a boundary may lie and how to answer this question taking account of cultural diversities. This raises immense complexities and sensitivities, which we can only hint at in the space available here, but we suggest key considerations for the (renewed and urgent) development of such a dialogue, and encourage others to engage. In our earlier work, with Carol-Ann Hooper (Ribbens McCarthy et al., 2013b), we distinguished between approaches seeking to ‘normalise troubles’ and directions of argument that seek to ‘trouble the normal’ in children’s family lives. In developing our discussion here further in the light of cultural diversities, we raise questions about normalizing what might otherwise be seen (by those with divergent cultural assump- tions) as troubling. But at the same time, our aim throughout is to seek a way of determining when, and on what basis, the normal might be evaluated as troubling despite cultural diversities–or at least, to undertake some ground clearing work towards this aim. Jill Korbin (2013) puts this point succinctly in relation to the more specific concept of ‘child maltreatment’: ‘A fundamental challenge is not to confuse culture as child maltreatment or child maltreatment as culture’ (p. 30). Korbin (1994, 2013) earlier proposed an important distinction between ‘cultural pluralism’ and ‘cul- tural relativism’. The latter is based on an a priori assumption that there is no basis for evaluating childrearing practices across cultures, since what is appropriate depends entirely on cultural context. Cultural pluralism, however, argues that there are multi- ple possible pathways to raise children in differing societies, but evaluations of the maltreatment of individual children can be made in the light of what is considered acceptable and appropriate within those contexts. However, as Korbin (1981, 2013) points out, among various difficult complexities, there is also the further question of Ribbens McCarthy and Gillies 221 structural disadvantages for whole categories of children (rather than individuals) in particular societies. This points to the central conundrum–how to take account of cultural diversities while acknowledging that there may be times when it seems important to define such differences as ‘troubling’, potentially requiring interven- tions, even across divergent cultural understandings. Concepts of ‘child maltreatment’, ‘child abuse’, or ‘child well-being’ have received much attention from previous writers (e.g. Ben-Arieh et al., 2014; Featherstone et al., 2014; Ferguson, 2004; Korbin and Krugman, 2014; Thorpe, 1994), sometimes extending to issues of cultural diversities (e.g. Kimborough-Melton, 2014; Korbin, 1981, 1994; Nadan et al., 2015), but this has not always led to discussion of what ‘maltreatment’ consists of (Parton, 2014). And while social work literature points to both moral and political issues about how to determine ‘child abuse’ (e.g. Munro, 2002; Thorpe, 1994), this work has largely focused within rather than across national contexts.1 Our discussion here reframes these conceptual debates more broadly and more sociologically through the focus on ‘troubles’ as a ‘normal’ part of children’s family lives and the basis on which such troubles might sometimes be found to be significantly ‘troubling’, to whom, and why. And we draw particularly on the work of the philosopher François Jullien (2014 [2008]), to consider how to approach the development of inter-cultural dialogue concern- ing such issues. The idea that authorities might intervene in children’s family lives itself developed in particular contexts, notably affluent Anglophone and Western European societies since the 19th century. Such ‘outside’ interventions into family lives in these countries are largely based on professional judgements of varying kinds (Broadhurst, 2007), within variable policy contexts (Boddy et al., 2014), shaped by political, legal, and moral frameworks (Ferguson, 2004; Parton, 2014; Webb, 2006). The format of such interventions has undergone changes from initial beginnings in the work of (often reli- gious) charitable societies, through the development of welfare states, to what might be seen as ‘moral panics’ about the protection and safeguarding of children, and the man- agement of risk (Smith, 2010), sometimes leading to highly bureaucratized and proce- durally driven practices which elevate surveillance over care (Ferguson, 2004; Lonne et al., 2009, 2013). Such moral panics are intimately bound up with notions of ‘childhood’ as a special time for innocence and freedom from responsibility, with a moral imperative for the responsible ‘Adult’2 (normally mothers) to ensure the appropriate care of the ‘Child’ (Ribbens McCarthy et al., 2000), along with a total dedication by parents to ensure that children’s well-being is prioritized in all aspects of family life (Lareau, 2011; Lee et al., 2014). Indeed, Cook (2017) suggests that ‘childhood’ itself is constituted by these moral entanglements. Nevertheless, the cultural embeddedness of this vision of ‘childhood’ is neglected precisely because it has become such a powerful focus for (unquestionable) moral responses and ideals. Furthermore, this moral overload is itself a significant source of anxiety and barrier to dialogue, as those concerned seek some certainty about how best to nurture children’s lives. Many such expectations become cloaked in professional and academic discourses giving an appearance of objectivity, with families described as ‘functional’ or ‘dysfunctional’, ‘healthy’ or ‘unhealthy’, ‘normative’ or ‘troubled’ (Crossley, 2016a, 2016b; Somerville, 2000; Vetere, 2013)–terms which obscure their 222 Sociological Research Online 23(1) underpinnings in culturally shaped value judgements. Yet these ‘childhood’ ideals are rooted in the affluence and expectations of particular cultural contexts (Gillis, 2009; Hendrick, 2009), even while such notions are promulgated through international social policy (Ansell, 2005; Boyden, 1997). Such processes risk a cultural imperialism that impoverishes humanity through the loss of alternative cultural resources and possibilities concerning children’s lives. By seeking to move beyond such perspectives, light can be shed on their underpinning assumptions, enabling fresh insights concerning children’s lives around the globe, including (both more and less privileged) children in affluent Minority worlds. Indeed, Jullien (2014 [2008]) argues that Western European, and by extension Anglophone thought more generally, shares a particular common heritage in Aristotelean philosophy, which permeates European languages and experience. In these respects, then, our current discussion raises broad issues of postcolonial ontologies and epistemologies (issues we return to below). Indeed, in contemporary childhood studies, there are increasing efforts to understand children’s lives in diverse global contexts (e.g. Katz, 2004; Montgomery, 2008; Punch, 2016; Twum-Danso Imoh and Ame, 2012; Wells, 2009), requiring the flexibility to draw and redraw the parameters in focus depending on the purpose in hand, sometimes not only highlighting broad comparisons but also focusing on specific locations. Some of this work includes discussion of how to assess ‘harm’, as seen, for example, in relation to issues of child labour (Ansell, 2005; Bourdillon, 2006; Morrow and Boyden, 2010) which is increasingly recognized to be a complex and often locally specific issue to evaluate in terms of its mixed impact on children’s lives, their view of themselves, and their position in their families. Even child prostitution as a form of child labour has been discussed by the anthropologist Heather Montgomery (2014, 2015) as requiring a nuanced sensitivity to understand its significance in children’s family lives in local con- texts. From a broader perspective, however, international and local power dynamics, as well as material inequalities, historical and contemporary colonialism, and nation build- ing in various forms (Chen, 2016), are inevitably central to such issues and how they are assessed–whether more or less negatively. But at the same time, people–including chil- dren–are active meaning-makers in their own right. In this regard, people of all ages seek to make sense of the circumstances in which they find themselves using whatever cultural resources are to hand. This perspective invokes the contentious terms ‘culture’ and ‘cultural difference’, risking accusations of reifying ‘culture’ as fixed, with a life of its own, that may be harnessed towards political projects (Lukes, 2008), including claims for the legitimization of structural inequalities by more powerful groups within particular societies (Ncube, 1998, discussed in Butler, 2000). Yet, without some such notions, there is a risk of leaving out what cannot be accommodated within prevailing discourses and knowledge claims (Gressgård, 2010). Here, we use the term ‘culture’ to highlight systematically patterned ways of living and being in the world–always fluid and in motion–found in diverse contexts, that both shape, and are shaped by, the dynamics of power and agency in everyday interactions as well as institutionalized structures, through an uneven process resembling bricolage (Duncan, 2011). Such cultural resources are deeply historically embedded,3 invoking philosophical and existential issues of what it means to be a person, to ‘be’ in the world, living alongside other persons, and to experience both happiness and suffering Ribbens McCarthy and Gillies 223 (Kleinman, 2006). Ultimately, the issues at stake concern how people around the globe can explore the different ways of being in the world and wonder at that and act upon it where deemed necessary. While cultural diversities with regard to child well-being, or harm, have long been recognized by anthropologists and social work writers, these matters become increas- ingly urgent as variable understandings around the globe are unavoidably brought into confrontation, if not dialogue. In a globalizing world, transnational mobile knowledge flows impact on children’s family lives in concrete ways (Thelen and Haukanes, 2010), whether through movements of people or through economic dynam- ics, international policies, and organizations. Family and child social policy is thus being changed by global processes from multiple directions, impacting on family and care practices and expectations, giving rise to ‘confrontation, contradiction, and sometimes conflict’ (Köngeter and Good Gingrich, 2013: 138; and see Juozeliūnienė and Budginaitė, in press). In the contemporary global world, expectations of, and direct interventions in, the family lives of children are shaped by diverse actors, in a range of settings, from interna- tional legislation, public media and debates, to localized face-to-face interactions. Who is troubled by particular aspects of children’s family lives, and on what grounds, high- lights not only structural issues of power but also assumptions and un-explicated value judgements, often obscured within knowledge claims. Across such a range of sites and actors, what are the underlying evaluative frameworks that define some families, and some family practices, as troubling, and to whom? In tackling this central question, we argue that a ‘universal’ answer cannot be provided empirically and explore instead the possibilities for inter-cultural dialogue in regard to values, world views, and ideas of personhood, that may be relevant to evaluating children’s family troubles. But from the outset, we need to explicate that nothing can be said or known outside of ‘culture’, recognizing the intricate inter-relationships between social actions and lan- guage (Ahearn, 2012). Indeed, our questions, and the terms in which we consider them, are themselves embedded in the Anglophone academic contexts in which we find our- selves. There are no neat solutions to be found, only potential pathways to respectful and contextualized debate, the hope of recognizing further possibilities, and at times the need for political and ethical decisions to be made. We begin, then, by raising issues of lan- guage and concepts by which to frame any inter-cultural dialogue on troubling families. Concepts and language Revealing core issues of language and concepts is a painstaking and profoundly chal- lenging process.4 The difficulties this poses for inter-cultural dialogue have been particu- larly considered by the French philosopher Jullien (2014 [2008]), proposing specific ways of framing these debates. He argues that European philosophy developed a notion of ‘the universal’,5 as an a priori assertion of something that is logically necessary, imperative, even without evidence being brought to bear (‘devoir-être’), creating a spe- cifically European search for ‘truth’. Instead, he proposes a focus on what is ‘common’– or shared–across cultures, in which ‘universalizing’ becomes a process or way of thinking, rather than a search for a fixed ‘truth’. At the same time, cultural perspectives 224 Sociological Research Online 23(1) may ‘diverge’ in dynamic ways, revealing fresh perspectives, rather than static ‘differ- ences’. Inter-cultural dialogue is a political project with infinite possibilities, rooted in a capacity for intelligibility. But even if dialogue moves beyond European rules of argu- mentation, does ‘dialogue’ reflect an overemphasis on the ‘virtue of the word’? (Jullien, 2014 [2008]: 132). Here, Jullien (2014 [2008]) explores the subtleties of linguistic diver- gences while also arguing that language-thought gives rise to ‘an indefinitely shareable possibility [pouvoir être] [of]… universal communicability’ (p. 135, original emphasis). ‘[The human] reveals itself through those of its facets that are illuminated and deployed by multiple cultures as they patiently and intently probe each other …’ (Jullien, 2014 [2008]: 171). At the same time, Jullien does not underestimate the incommensurability of language terms or, more fundamentally, the divergences in thought systems underly- ing linguistic frameworks. Indeed, since meanings may diverge even when words have been correctly translated, Jullien argues for a never-ending exploration of the implicit intelligibility of language-thought. Chinese language-thought, for example, has a ‘side- ways’ approach to the nature of ‘categories’, such as existence or non-existence, child/ adult. While such static categories fundamentally underpin Aristotelean-based European language-thought, Chinese language-thought may be more expressive of flux, interac- tion and transformation, viewing such Aristotelean categories as sterile. In regard to our present focus on diverse family troubles more specifically, Carrithers’ anthropological discussion of ‘vicissitudes’ and ‘expectations’ is also usefully open ended. Expectations may involve mundane features of anticipated regularity–the typi- cally normal–or they may involve hopes and desires–what is normatively the way things should be–while vicissitudes involve the ‘ruin of expectations’ (Carrithers, 2009: 3). When vicissitudes arise, rhetoric and culture are mobilized to work out what to think and how to act, but a risk arises that such responses ‘may deepen the crisis, create more vicis- situdes, and require yet further marshalling of ideas and interpretations’ (Carrithers, 2009)–raising the possibility that interventions in children’s family troubles may them- selves sometimes create harm (Lonne et al., 2009; Thorpe, 1994). Shaped by power dynamics, along with the (culturally creative) meanings available through which to frame them, (implicit) expectations are crucial aspects of how people live their family lives and how things may come to be understood to be troubling when expectations are not met or are challenged or disrupted, perhaps violently (Ribbens McCarthy et al., 2013b). Again, though, if the disruption is expected, then it may not necessarily be found to be troubling or even disruptive; indeed, if it involves a move from one ‘ordered scene’ (Carrithers, 2009) to another, it may be captured more effectively as a transition. Such considerations highlight issues about how to understand changes and challenges in children’s family lives. Such issues include the categories through which change is understood to have occurred, why it may be experienced as ‘challenging’, and whether what is occurring is experienced as ‘loss’–and thus unwelcome or negative, perhaps ‘harmful’–or potentially a form of ‘growth’6–carrying positive connotations (Ribbens McCarthy, 2006). Indeed, change may often/generally entail much ambiguity and many elements of both. Craib (1994) argues that contemporary affluent societies have devel- oped expectations of a trouble-free life, failing to recognize the inevitable ‘disappoint- ment’ and suffering of human experience. This raises the likelihood that the idealization of ‘childhood’ itself creates unrealistic expectations of a special phase of life protected Ribbens McCarthy and Gillies 225 from troubles, in the process, opening up new possibilities for the ruin of expectations and failing to equip young people to cope with the (more or less) inevitable vicissitudes of existence. These conceptual discussions point to sociological issues of what is taken for granted by social actors and the resources available (cultural and material) for responding to life’s vicissitudes. ‘Troubles’ may thus have a specifically sociological resonance (Francis, 2015), but sociology is itself a political enterprise. Our argument so far seeks to recognize the politi- cal choices and cultural assumptions that may be present in the concepts used and the (linguistically framed) questions asked in regard to troubling families. We explore next some implications for knowledge production, to consider how empirical claims from developmental psychology have sought to assert universal certainties about when and how to evaluate children’s family lives and troubles. We exemplify our discussion by reference to studies of childrearing in China, and the application of ‘neuroscience’ to UK policies for early interventions in children’s family lives, drawing on our own recent areas of writing to demonstrate the dangers of seeking definitive empirical answers7 to the questions we are asking. Empirical un/certainties? Developmental psychology is arguably the dominant paradigm for thinking about chil- dren’s well-being in Anglophone and Western European contexts and is also crucial to the regulation of mothering/fathering (Burman, 2016). In its origins, the discipline was largely based on a unilinear framework of maturational stages that ‘the child’–as univer- sal human subject–passes through, with major implications for how children’s ‘needs’ (Woodhead, 1990) are understood. Based on this framework, an enormous body of empirical work has been produced, embedded in and institutionalized by educational, health, and social work professions, as well as social policies, in ways that continue despite more critical insights from some academic psychologists (Burman, 2016). Yet the empirical foundation for much of this work is based on WEIRD samples–that is, from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic sections of societies (Henrich et al., 2010). Furthermore, it is predicated on culturally and historically specific notions of childhood and adulthood, in which individuality and independence constitute prized markers of adulthood, with such Minority world values being seen as the unques- tioned basis for appropriate ‘outcomes’ of ‘child development’ (Ansell, 2005; Brooker and Woodhead, 2008). Yet when children are studied across diverse cultures through a Vygotskian theoretical framework of ‘mediated action’, their competencies at particular ages are found to vary greatly depending on their experiences and social expectations of children (Rogoff, 2003), a theoretical framework that has been receiving increased atten- tion8 (Burman, 2016; Rapport and Overing, 2007). Nevertheless, such alternative theo- ries may not filter through to social policy, parenting classes, or professional training of teachers or social workers. Indeed, it is the institutionalization of classic developmental psychology that underpins international law and aid agencies (Burman, 2008; Goodale, 2009), including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (Woodhead, 2009), as well as everyday forms of governance in which family members monitor their own behaviour (Burman, 2016; Rose, 1999). The critical psychologist Erica Burman (2008) 226 Sociological Research Online 23(1) thus argues that, as long as it maintains a unitary, general model of maturation, develop- mental psychology can only recognize difference in terms of … relative progress on a linear scale … Developmental psychology therefore functions as a tool of cultural imperialism through the reproduction of Western values and models within post-colonial societies. (pp. 293–294) Such classic developmental psychology underpins much empirical work on children’s family lives in China, including studies by Chinese researchers, as we exemplify briefly here with reference to aspects of punishment and parental control. In such psychological comparative studies of parenting, there may be–at best–only a preliminary discussion of translation processes, in considering the appropriateness of Anglophone research meth- odologies being applied in diverse contexts (e.g. Lansford et al., 2005). Even where psychological studies seek to be sensitive to cultural diversity, they may still import value judgements through their basic premises. Barber et al. (2012), for example, explicitly sought to develop a scale for measuring psychological control by parents which would have resonance across diverse contexts. Their study concluded that detrimental effects of parental psychological control occurred ‘universally’, but their underlying and unquestioned theoretical concept referred to ‘dis- respect for individuality’ which was theorized to damage the sense of ‘self’, failing to reflect on the cultural embeddedness of such notions. Furthermore, as Lansford et al. (2005) discuss, ‘cultural normativeness’ may act as a moderator of parenting behav- iours,9 and taking account of additional cultural features which cannot be included in such structured comparative studies raises enormous complexities. As Eisenberg et al. (2009) observe in relation to China, ‘… highly directive parenting … may not undermine children’s adjustment in collectivist cultures,10 likely because such parenting is viewed as appropriate and in the child’s best interest’ (p. 461). However, a focus on ‘shame’ as a form of discipline can highlight specifically Chinese cultural values and perspectives. In China, shame carries important moral functions, pro- moting compliance with the norms of the collective (Choi and Han, 2009; Helwig et al., 2014), and it continues to be advocated for moral education in (national) loyalty (Naftali, 2016; Yan and Wang, 2006; Yu, 2007). In her research with young children’s families in Taiwan, Fung (1999) drew on Schneider’s (1977) theoretical framework to distinguish between shame as disgrace and shame as discretion–the latter referring to the learning of ethical and social rules. Fung’s ethnography highlighted how shaming occurred in nuanced everyday interactions. Compared with the view of shame apparent in Anglophone psychological literature (e.g. Barish, 2009; Soenens and Beyers, 2012), in which shame is theorized as a form of psychological control (universally) damaging to individuality and long-term development, Fung’s study points to parenting practices understood to be expressing a particular understanding of shame, seen as key to participation in harmoni- ous social life. Structured psychological studies thus regularly fail to heed warnings against viewing specific cultural practices as a ‘toolkit’ of resources (Lukes, 2008: 106). Jullien (2014 [2008]) cautions against a conception of cultural diversities as a form of global supermarket, in which the shopper can select from alternative products. In such a Ribbens McCarthy and Gillies 227 supermarket, he suggests, the categories and their organization are all predetermined in line with European categories of reason. Chinese scholars may thus seek erroneously to develop a synthesis of Chinese and Western cultures, thinking about differences only in Western terms even when expressing themselves in Chinese (and see also Goh, 2011). These considerations are readily apparent in Anglophone quantitative child psychology which applies Minority world preoccupations, theories, and concepts, to develop research studies around the globe, including China (Ribbens McCarthy et al., 2018). Rather, childcare practices must be viewed holistically (Korbin, 1994), with disciplinary tactics understood as ‘packaged variables’ (Parke, 2002: 596). Indeed, the cultural contexts relevant to children’s family lives are always dynamic, multi-layered, and multi-sited, cross-cut by multiple diversities. In contemporary Chinese children’s family lives, these include the specific ways in which childhood itself is insti- tutionalized as a legal and social structure (Ribbens McCarthy et al., 2017), the changing but still core significance of the complex notion of filial piety shaping appropriate inter- generational relationships, the centrality of family and social networks for material pro- tection and survival, the historical and contemporary significance of educational pressures, ancient philosophies of childhood oriented to ideas of collective personhood, and an emphasis on the moral value of self-cultivation towards becoming an acceptable human being; all underpinned by values of stability, harmony, and loyalty (Ribbens McCarthy et al., 2017a). All of these themes, in more recent times, have also encountered ideas from affluent Anglophone and Western European societies which may be seen as a route towards prosperity and success (Fong, 2004). This discussion thus highlights a double jeopardy in terms of what is left out by Anglophone research based in a developmental psychology that occludes cultural con- texts and what is included in terms of unquestioned value assumptions: ‘Our psychologi- cal idiom affects and is affected by our moral one. It often substitutes for–recodes–it’ (Crapanzano, 2013: 537). In recent years, psychologists’ search for definitive ‘truths’ has emphasized the bio- logical mechanisms thought to underlie children’s optimal development, focusing on the arguably detrimental effects of insensitive parenting on infant brains. As part of what has been termed a general ‘scientisation of parenting’ (Faircloth, 2010; Ramaekers and Suissa, 2011) in Anglophone contexts, policy and practice accounts are increasingly concerned with the formation of ‘brain architecture’ during the first years on the basis that the ‘wrong type of parenting and other adverse experiences can have a profound effect on how chil- dren are emotionally wired’ (Allen, 2011: xiii). ‘Poor quality’ of mothering received during this ‘critical window’ of brain development is argued to be linked to a range of personal and public troubles including what may be defined as mental health difficulties, poor social and emotional skills, educational underachievement, and antisocial behaviour, leading to increased risk of unemployment, poverty, and crime in later life. In the UK, this biologized theorizing has underpinned an emphasis on early years intervention, enacted through the allocation of professionals to disadvantaged mothers of young children to train them in ‘parenting skills’. Normative structures of good parenting are made appar- ently solid and unquestionable through this biological narrative, while the resulting per- ception of urgency and risk generates an imperative to rapid action. Professionals are