Intensive parenting is a highly involved, hands-on approach to parenting, most commonly practiced by mothers. It assumes intensive parental involvement and investment in a child’s upbringing are key indicators of their ability to not only thrive but outperform other children. While research shows that parents across the socio-economic spectrum agree that elements of this style are important to a child’s development when practiced to a healthy degree, it is criticised for its impact on maternal mental health and its financial expense, as well as its inherent sexism in deprioritising a father’s role in raising children as secondary to the mother’s. Some writers speculate that negative outcomes for children may include a sense of entitlement, narcissism, and problems with self-reliance, but this is not yet backed by data.

Where does the term “intensive parenting” come from and why has it stuck?

The term is attributed to American Gender Studies and Sociology Professor Sharon Hays, who wrote about intensive mothering in her 1996 book The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood (New Haven and London: Yale University Press). It has been picked up by multiple parenting authors, therapists, and educators. Some researchers link the concept of intensive parenting to neoliberal ideas about improving society and others to middle class anxiety about social mobility, both phenomena that are unlikely to disappear any time in the near future. In addition, the culture of intensive parenting implies that almost total parental control over one’s child’s outcomes in life is possible through proper practice of this style. This is understandably very attractive to any concerned parent.

What are the features of intensive parenting?

A child-centred approach

Intensive parenting is child-led, characterised by choices and activities that benefit the child and encourage their healthy development as an individual. At its core, intensive parenting could be interpreted as deeply respectful of children and the significance of childhood in human life, as well as admirable in its belief that adults should invest in children as a means of attaining the best possible future for themselves and society in general.

Parenting as key to female fulfilment

Parenting is a full-time job, whether you believe in this parenting style or not, but in intensive parenting culture, it's believed that the activity in itself should fulfil women as a job or successful relationship might do. Over self-identification with a child’s achievements and failures seem like obvious pitfalls, but some also argue that if we know– as we do—that involved parenting styles yield successful, self-regulating, and contented adults, why wouldn’t you, as a loving parent, seek that sort of fulfilment as intensively as possible?

Maternal essentialism

Intensive parenting prioritises the mother as the essential parent, proposing not only that a mother’s primary source of achievement and satisfaction in life is her children but that she, in turn, is the most important caregiver in a child’s life. This glorifies motherhood in a beautiful way. Ultimate respect for the matriarch should also encourage single or co-parenting mothers, but it does place a tremendous amount of pressure and high expectations on mothers generally. This aspect of intensive parenting culture seems traditional in its sexism but may be linked to smaller family sizes and fewer multi-generational families cohabiting with aunts, grandparents, etc. contributing to the raising of the children. It is also indicative of the loss of the traditional village, with advice from professionals and academic experts seen as aspirational and sought before the wisdom of elder family members.

Resource devotion

Intensive parenting involves physical, emotional, and psychological labour, as well as significant financial resources. Some research suggests that this parenting approach is impossible for working-class parents to attempt because of its time- and labour intensive, expensive nature.

Labour-intensive parenting

Intensive parenting is both time- and labour-intensive, demanding a parent's commitment to preempting and catering to a child’s every need, as well as cultivating their strong academic, social, and other performances. Time spent with the child is often focused on concerted enrichment, stimulating the child through reading and other one-to-one activities. The belief that it is a parent's duty to stimulate a child intellectually is another hallmark of intensive parenting.

Cultivation of the child through structured activities

Intensive parenting is committed to giving children the best possible start in life, which this style's culture teaches involves lots of extracurricular activities and an emphasis on outstanding academic achievement through expensive education. Anticipating and solving problems for a child, intervening in academic and social struggles, and taking care of responsibilities a child may be able to handle themselves are all cultivation steps intensive parents might take with the goal of helping their children.

Expert guidance

One of the contradictions of a style that demands so much of parents is that intensive parenting does not seem to trust parental guidance completely, instead encouraging them to study the most up-to-date, expert-backed information on healthy child development in great detail and then to put it into practice. Experts are, as a class, diverse and hold differing opinions, which is why parenting styles as a subject can undermine one’s confidence and seem confusing. Unii always suggests that you take what appeals to you and that you believe is best for your child and family from any prescribed parenting style. Nobody is better equipped to raise your children than you are.

Isn’t intensive parenting just a stay-at-home mother phenomenon?

No, research shows that both working and stay-at-home mothers—as well as fathers—engage in intensive parenting, so it is unfair to dismiss this style as the practice of stay-at-home mothers who have no outlet for their energy and ambition beyond their child.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of intensive parenting for the mother?

Much writing and research on this parenting style relates directly to how it can negatively impact mothers’ mental and emotional health and the arguably unreasonable expectations it places upon women generally. New work on intensive parenting since it appeared in Sharon Hay’s writing consistently reflects on how, despite women’s expanded role in the workplace and public life, this style has become more demanding of mothers, as well as how society allows the impact on women to go largely unchecked.

The influence of intensive parenting on the mother’s relationship with her partner is also of note, as such a significant dedication of personal and financial resources to mothering inevitably changes the pre-children's dynamic between her and her other half.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of intensive parenting for the child?

While most of the research on this style focusses on how it impacts the mother, intensive parenting does have some proven advantages for children, notably on a child’s physical health and development. Negative outcomes in children are believed to be psychological, including anxiety and poor coping skills as young adults, though there is less empirical evidence of this.

For more evidence-based advice on supporting your child in their early years, check out Unii’s Toddler Health and Development Journey video course led by Dr. Nisha Patel.

Parenting Styles: What is intensive parenting and should I try it?

Unii takes a look at this extremely hands-on parenting style, typically undertaken by mothers.