Parenting style the key determinant of life chances, says Cameron ...

[Molesworth]

Today David Cameron gave a speech at thinktank Demos as part of their "Character Inquiry". In the speech Cameron refers to research carried out by Demos and makes the following bold claim: "the differences in child outcomes between a child born in poverty and a child born in wealth are no longer statistically significant when both have been raised by 'confident and able parents'."

Policy recommendations include training HVs to assess parent-child attachments and parenting styles.

Details of the inquiry are available here: www.demos.co.uk/projects/the-character-inquiry

And the research paper to which Cameron refers is available to download for free here: www.demos.co.uk/publications/parenting

Well, Michael Marmot has spent a great deal of his (eminent) professional life researching inequality, its causes and effects and his previous and current research is stark. Poverty does have a dramatic effect on your ability to do well (should be bloody obvious even to Cameron but Marmot has the numbers and clear and detailed evidence to prove it).

A bright toddlers from a poor background will fall behind an average child from a better off family by the age of 10 or 11. Family income is a much more important factor in success at school than actual intellectual ability.

I dunno, what are they teaching those boys at Eton? Presumably if Cameron had gone to Bash St Comp he might be able to comprehend evidence that is clear to everyone else...

toddlers reworded my post and forgot to adjust!

let's face it, most confident and capable parents aren't going to be found at the bottom of the poverty pile

or at the very least, they're not going to stay confident for very long if that is where they are

poverty wears most people down

my hunch is that it is fairly easy to be as confident as a loaded old Etonian if you are somewhere halfway down the scale, say, educated middle class on a not very high wage but reasonably satisfactory job. Fine. Above a certain basic limit, money may not matter that much.

But it's going to be a damn sight harder if you are living in squalour, surrounded by violent drug addicts, constantly facing eviction.

I'd like to know where Cameron digs up these confident people at the bottom of the pile.

Or, to take another scenario, on a low-wage job or benefits, but in reasonably safe tenancy in an area where your front door is not at risk at being kicked down and your teen is not confronted by drug dealers the moment he steps out of the door.

Not suggesting for a moment that class or education makes you a better parent, just pointing out that there are situations where nobody's confidence would hold out for very long.

look I have met good parents in shitholes. But they are good parents, thats all. Their children grow up not being drug addicts or alcoholics, and holding down a job (badly paid).

Yes, the good parents of upper class children manage the same, and their children end up in good jobs on their parents connections, backed up by their private income of course.

But to compare the careers of the two children is just annoying and insulting.
It suggests that poor people should be happy with their lot, and everything is OK as long as we say that they are just as good as rich people really.

At least it's a timely reminder that the Tories have not actually changed their spots: 'Poor people, it's All Your Own Fault and nothing at all to do with the way we happen to decide to carve up the pie of income/wealth/reward/opportunity in this country.'

by confidence I mean the kind of confidence that gets you to encourage your children to go for an interesting and well paid job, tells them to work all hours to get top A-level grade, gets them to apply to top universities- that kind of thing. It can be done without connections; I know people who have done it. But it's a hell of a lot easier to do it if you are surrounded by people with those expectations. That is entirely about confidence. The kind of confidence that is exuded by the children from public schools.

I can't imagine the things that Cameron seems to be claiming are true independently of historical circumstances.
I'm would guess it was more true when my parents were kids and there were grammar schools and free university education than it is now.... and than it is going to be in the future if the rich-poor divide gets worse....

Cameron speech in full

"Of course there's a link between material poverty and poor life chances, but the full picture is that that link also runs through the style of parenting that children in poor households receive. Because the research shows that while the style of responsible parenting I?ve spoken about today is more likely to occur in wealthier households, children in poor households who are raised with that style of parenting do just as well."

"Poor people, it's All Your Own Fault and nothing at all to do with the way we happen to decide to carve up the pie of income/wealth/reward/opportunity in this country."

Saying "you can do something about this! It's not impossible!" to "poor people" is not the same as blaming them.

Thinking that "poor people" can't do anything about their situation and are stuck there until the Government decides to change how it "carve(s) up the pie of income/wealth/reward/opportunity" is both wrong and extremely demeaning.

From the kids going through the education system in a run down area the ones who are doing well are usually the ones whose parents supported the school in things like discipline and showed an interested in the child's education.

The ones who seem to be in trouble and going nowhere fast are usually the ones whose parents didn't give a damn, were up complaining to the school if the school tried to discipline the child and would sit there at parent's evenings saying "of course we read to our child every night" when you know full well that they don't.

There are always exceptions to both sides but as a rule the kids that do best and therefore the kids that stand to make the most of their life chances are the ones with involved parent's.

The same was certainly true of my life looking back. My parents took me to the library, they read to me most nights, I read to them most nights as I grew up and they were involved with my school. True enough later in my school years they lost interest in me but by that point I was pretty much set.

I went to what was considered to be a very rough school and people around me went everywhere from high flying bankers to prison multiple times for violent crime. Once again a key splitting factor, though with many exceptions, was parental involvement with the child and their education.

However....

I'm not sure that the Government trying to get involved and determine what "good parenting" is is the right thing to be doing.

The rising costs of higher education might substantially change things. Even today I don't like debt and I think I got that from my background, I live carefully within me means. Would going to university with it's now higher costs and debts put me off? Quite possible. And that does put a real glass ceiling on people's life changes.

Badgerspaws and Cory, very well said.

I came from a sink estate in London and went to a bog standard Comp, the difference in parenting styles was certainly a factor in where my classmates ended up.

When you have a parent who is encouraging you to do well and one who is pissed paraletic in the corner it really does make a big difference.

Lets hope the Conservatives can close the great divide that has grow under the Labour governments management.

But atlantis I don't think it's down to Labour particularly - it appears that the larger our welfare state grows the larger the divide between rich and poor.

I do believe that a stable and focussed parents can reap great rewards - I have friends who have beat the divide and are doing really great (but sadly think that everyone from a sink estate can do it if they have) but it is definately much easier if you have an economically stable background.

"but it is definately much easier if you have an economically stable background."

All of life is much easier if you don't need to worry about money.

But look at the immigrants who came in the 70's and 80's, many were on my old estate and many went to my old school, their parents were cleaners and porters (at hospitals), bus conductors etc, not exactly middle classed as someone claimed and their children are solicitors, doctors, accountants etc.

Then look at parents like the show (which I have never watched but seen clips) shameless and there is the divide.

purlease, atlantis, do you think they were bus conductors in their own country???

"purlease, atlantis, do you think they were bus conductors in their own country??? "

I don't know what they all did, do you?

Maybe someone should ask General Idi Amin and find out what job spots he needed to fill when he expelled 80,000 of them.

The point is, that many middle class people end up doing working class jobs when they emigrate! Not exactly what they did. Obviously.

Pity he didn't mention what the 'good parents' (as opposed to what, the lazy or bad or unfit ones?) in disadvantaged areas are up against as they try to guide their children into adulthood. This seems to be another conservative way of saying government has no role to play in making anyone's life better (meaning access to great rehab for parents, if nothing else) and it's all your own fault or your parents' fault if things haven't worked out for you.

Middle class jobs, Atlantis, that's the point. He expelled the Ugandan Asians because they were overwhelmingly middle class and it was easy to stoke up resentment. Presumably inspired by Hitler's success in blaming the Jews.

Badgers, where did I say no-one can do anything about their own life? It's Cameron who is blaming people for being poor, not me!

Acknowledging that poverty is a massive hurdle and determinant of educational achievement, ill-health and lots of other things is a. honest and b. is the starting point for developing policies that address the issues and might even remove some of those barriers so kids from poorer families have the same chance as everyone else of doing well.

"Sorry, the difference between rich children and poor children who are HE'd is negligible."

I tend to disagree on that, it may be negligible if you see how many rich and poor children get to University.

But, if you see that in percentages you will see that most rich children end up at University while most poor ones don't. Unfortunately there are far more poor people than rich.

"It's Cameron who is blaming people for being poor"

I don't see how you can claim Cameron is 'blaming' people for being poor, he's doing nothing of the sort.

"Middle class jobs, Atlantis, that's the point. He expelled the Ugandan Asians because they were overwhelmingly middle class and it was easy to stoke up resentment."

What can be claimed as middle classin uganda and what they came over here too is hardly our idea of middle classed.

"hardly our idea of middle class"
ffs, how cheeky

Not often I agree with atlantis but honestly nightby to say that these people were not bus conductors in their countries is offensive to the large porportion of people who have come here with very little - little education, little English- live in awful conditions, make sacrifices,work their arses off in poorly paid jobs, pull together and demand alot from their kids - and yep - they've done very very well.

Money is definately a factor but so are aspiration and culture.

Our education system doesn't help I think.

""hardly our idea of middle class"
ffs, how cheeky "

I do not see a problem with this statement.

Do you think what our idea (ie; the uk) and their idea (ie uganda) of middle class is the same?

Explain please.

"Badgers, where did I say no-one can do anything about their own life? It's Cameron who is blaming people for being poor, not me! "

No he's not saying that, he's saying that people can do something about their lives and the lives of their children.

What he said was:

That what mattered most to a child's chances was "not the wealth of their upbringing but the warmth of their parenting".

"Of course there's a link between material poverty and poor life chances, but the full picture is that that link also runs through the style of parenting that children in poor households receive"

I don't like David Cameron and I'm not sure I agree with his conclusions but I happen to agree with him here.

Looking to my own background and the deprived areas of London with which I'm familiar the biggest determining factor in how well children did was the parents involvement.

Yes poverty makes it harder but good and encouraging parenting can get around that and that is both the real root cause of the problem and it's solution.

This isn't about blame but about saying that you can help your child to a better life.