Abstract
Family life has been affected by many recent trends in society, some of which can make being a parent more difficult than it was in the past. Factors that can cause financial or emotional strain on parents include:
- Later parenthood/smaller families, meaning that parents may ‘invest' more, financially and emotionally, in their children.
- More families in which both parents work - which can have many costs, including tiredness, feelings of guilt and the financial burden of paying for childcare.
- We are becoming a more materialistic society, something which can affect family life at all stages, including the perceived need for large amounts of baby equipment, pester power among children of all ages and the cost of family holidays and leisure activities.
- The rise in numbers of one-parent families, and the fact that extended families tend to be older, and more widely spread geographically, can lead to feelings of isolation and lack of support for parents of young children.
- At the same time, parents are increasingly having to give support to their grown-up children, sometimes until they are well into their twenties or thirties; and they may also have to provide assistance to their own parents, especially if they are suffering health problems.
- Stepfamilies are becoming more common, and can be associated with both emotional and financial difficulties.
This report takes a broad view of the term ‘family' , to encompass all households shared by parents and children, of whatever age. With the new government policy of increasing the school leaving age to 18, this adds further fuel to the need for a truer family definition, as childhood is being lengthened.
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