Birbalsingh is right to challenge middle-class "gentle parenting"
Judging others' parenting skills is for the brave. But Britain’s strictest headteacher doesn't shy away from no-go topics.
There are few conversations as potentially explosive as those that dare to broach the subject of another’s parenting skills.
We would sooner call out our friends’ and siblings’ drinking habits than suggest they are raising unruly, obnoxious children.
But thankfully, the woman stuck with the moniker "Britain’s strictest headteacher" has few qualms about tackling no-go topics.
Katharine Birbalsingh said this week what many older generation parents know to be true: today’s "gentle parenting", rife among the middle classes, is damaging to children and has created a culture that is particularly harmful to working-class families – the ones she has to deal with at her north London school.
Child-centred parenting manuals, mostly written by middle class authors, that advocate being friends with your offspring have undermined adult authority, with repercussions in the classroom as well as in the home, said Birbalsingh.