Publisher's Synopsis
This ebook of Young Consumers addresses matters of consumption from the perspective of new parents and their children. Papers in this volume explore the significance of consumer culture for new parents, the diversity of consumption practices available to them and the parenting styles they may imagine or inhabit through engagement with the market. From the routine purchase of baby products and other forms of provisioning, the papers in this collection examine the 'work' of commodities in preparation for parenthood. Papers discuss the expansion of the commercial sphere and the increasing commodification of every aspect of pregnancy and parenthood. Additionally, parents-to-be approach their new role with a set of personally generated ideas on what they may 'need' to start a family. It may be productive to ask where the extent and limits of the market lie in relation to new parenthood. Are they bounded by the needs of the newborn or do they extend to housing, childcare and education for example? And what do we know about those without the financial resources to buy their way into new parenthood? In the seemingly private decision to parent, consumption can be seen as a key site for the production of new social divisions. If this is the case then parenting can be examined as a politically important project in which relations with the market and the state may be reconfigured.
