Was Mary Hanafin right to raise the fear of our children losing out as we get richer? asks Sylvia Thompson
The Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, opened up a very sensitive debate last week with her headline-grabbing comments about "time-poor, cash-rich parents". She said: "Increasingly, we have a situation that parents say they would die for their children - and they would.
"But the same people, some of them would give their children money quicker than they would give them time and that is the problem."
In responding to her comments, it's virtually impossible not to moralise on the materialistic values of our affluent society. In an Ireland of almost full employment, it seems unfair to criticise hard-working parents for wanting to give their children a better lifestyle than many of them had in their youth.
But, as always, it's a question of balance and many family therapists - and indeed teachers - are struggling to solve problems that have at their core a lack of parental guidance.
Psychologist Rosemary Troy says: "I've had two young people in the last week who gave me permission to talk to their parents about their problems and the parents didn't have the time to come to see me.
"I'm not blaming them because there are time pressures about getting away from work but people are working so hard to maintain their lifestyles that society is less person-centred and family-centred than ever before.
"A lot of people are so exhausted from their day's work that they are not able to listen to what has been happening for their child."
Doreen Condon of the Marriage and Relationship Counselling Service says: "As a parent myself, I realise that most of us are time poor. I think we need to be more connected to our children. I think the problem is that we have taken on the American model of work which allows work to take precedence over everything else.
"I have family and friends who live on the Continent and they have a lot more time with their children. Work is just not given the same priority."
Family therapist and counsellor Owen Connolly puts it more starkly: "I think Mary Hanafin's comments were right on the button. We are in a serious situation which is almost at a point of crisis.
"What we are doing to children now will affect the adults of the future," he says. "Many children are not getting the attention they need from their parents in their early development.
"And children who are not getting their emotional needs met will dismiss that need and will have less ability to understand rules, regulations and other people's emotions."
Connolly adds that an understanding of the needs of children rather than the wants of children has disappeared from our society.
"Children are becoming more selfish and single-minded and less able to engage with others. They are not getting enough adult input and are influenced more by their peers than by adults," he says.
Some of these comments bring to mind the illuminating speech made by the Ombudsman, Emily O'Reilly, last year at the Ceifin conference in Co Clare.
She spoke of how "the tyranny of poverty and oppression has been supplanted by the modern cutting-edge tyranny of wealth and freedom".
She spoke of the child-like showing off of material goods, among adults. Is it any wonder then that our teenagers become so pre-occupied with designer labels?
O'Reilly also spoke about how it would be good to discipline our children by disciplining ourselves "to realise the risks of jaded appetites, of needs too quickly and too elaborately met, of lives made too cynical, too aware through the imposition of distorted adult views of what constitutes happiness, to realise that the new impoverished are not those with the DVDs and the latest Playstations and mobiles. . . but those perhaps, who have them and who got them without the slightest personal effort, every wish and expectation delivered upon without striving, without time to dream, without the peculiar joy known as delayed gratification".
Strong words indeed. So, how do we go about finding ways to redress these imbalances caused mainly by property prices which often result in both parents working full-time or one parent with a long commute to work and the other parent full-time in the home far from extended family and friends.
Trade union officials have criticised the dominance of fuelling our economic success while ignoring the social cost.
Many point to the Northern European countries as having the right balance between flexible parental leave, reduced working hours for parents alongside affordable, high-quality childcare provision.
Ian McArdle, industrial relations officer with the Irish Bank Officials Association and parent of two children, says: "There is a lot of economic pressure on families to have double incomes and maintain a high standard of living.
"There is also a lot of peer pressure to be a double-income family. The commitment and understanding that parenting requires isn't fully appreciated by this Government," he says. "Naturally, parents are going to compensate their children with gifts if they spend long hours at work but there can be no compensation for time and love of parents."
Finding ways to redress these imbalances will require hard choices for some parents. Owen Connolly says, "It's all fixable. It's about finding a balance between time spent with children and time spent at work."
And Doreen Condon adds: "Good family life and a respect for it bring good outcomes for society. Home life is important and giving children a secure base that is a place to return to when the going gets rough is so important."