I really enjoyed this. I was a big proponent of benign neglect myself, partly because of my own upbringing and partly because I'm quite lazy and not very anxious! But also, in middle class British circles at least, there's a cachet in benign neglect (or there was 15 years ago, it may be different now with the horrors to be found in an unbounded internet) - a sort of performance of insouciance that only works if you actually have a lot of privilege and your kids already have a massive head start in material terms. For example, it was regarded as pretty embarrassing to strive over homework or hire private tutors, which is fine when you come from the sort of family where all the parents and grandparents have a university education and your house is full of books, and statistically your child is already likely to be somewhere near the top of the class before anyone's picked up a pencil.
I really enjoyed this. I was a big proponent of benign neglect myself, partly because of my own upbringing and partly because I'm quite lazy and not very anxious! But also, in middle class British circles at least, there's a cachet in benign neglect (or there was 15 years ago, it may be different now with the horrors to be found in an unbounded internet) - a sort of performance of insouciance that only works if you actually have a lot of privilege and your kids already have a massive head start in material terms. For example, it was regarded as pretty embarrassing to strive over homework or hire private tutors, which is fine when you come from the sort of family where all the parents and grandparents have a university education and your house is full of books, and statistically your child is already likely to be somewhere near the top of the class before anyone's picked up a pencil.
This was a real goodie, I have to read coraline now!