Every now and again the Great American Novel #94 swims massively into view, the most recent incarnation being Jonathan Franzen's Freedom. I did not think Freedom was a particularly good novel, written beautifully from page to page, but with characters in thrall to a clunking plot scheme, denied the liberty to develop naturally, reduced in some cases to mere cardboard cutouts jumping through sigh-inducing narrative events, all to illustrate Franzen's larger ideas. Ambitious but flawed.
I thought about Freedom the other day however, listening to some people talking on the radio about the Coalition's changes to, of all things, support for young families. Money for Sure Start centres is apparently being cut, and the government is putting money instead into an online service. One woman said something very striking: "There's no doubt that British people are falling out of love with parenting".
Now I was a young parent several years before the advent of Sure Start, and my knowledge of it is confined to the anecdotal view that it is patronised on the whole by middle-class people who don't need it anyway. Certainly the only people I know who use it would fit that description, and this seemed to be accepted by the panel. The argument seemed to be about whether there were any means which could be used to reach the kind of people who really did need care and attention.
My answer to that would be "probably not". I wouldn't say that British people are falling out of love with parenting. I would say that we, or some of us anyway, are increasingly unwilling to accept the responsibilities that being parents imposes on you. Because whereas life before parenthood means you can do pretty much what you like within the constraints of spare time, economic circumstance and the law, afterwards you are stuffed. Afterwards you put your children first, and that means giving up a very large part of your autonomy.
If people are less willing to accept this, why would that be? In the West we have in the last century or so been increasingly seduced by the idea of freedom, and in particular the idea freedom of personal morality. We should, we believe, be able to do pretty much what we like. In a society where freedom is prized so highly, it's perhaps not surprising that people are quite reluctant to stick with something so inherently unglamorous and inhibiting as parenthood.
Giving people freedom gives them the option of making bad choices as well as good. In the context of family life, it means giving them parents the freedom to do the job really badly, if at all. It means greeting their transgressions with a shrug of the shoulders and a cheque for millions to fund care and support.
I used to be puzzled by the distinction between liberalism and libertarianism. One was evidently good and the other, being espoused by the Right, was self-evidently bad. But why should this be, when both were evidently devoted to freedom? It is now becoming a bit clearer. Liberalism gives people freedom, but then devotes a lot of time and money to helping them when they make bad choices. Libertarianism gives people freedom, but tells them they are on their own if they get it wrong.
Of the two, Liberalism is more superficially appealing, but probably encourages bad choices to the same extent as Libertarianism discourages them. And if Libertarianism is unforgiving, it is nevertheless a whole lot cheaper for a country whose money has run out. Expect to see more of it, soon.
