Parenting expert Gina Ford’s fame is a symptom of the collapse of the extended family

It has been 25 years since the publication of the bestselling The Contented Little Baby Book by Gina Ford. Many mothers and fathers will know of Gina Ford, and I suspect that her fame (or for some notoriety) is such that she may even be known to those who do not have children.

She is the parenting guru and expert who promoted a firm regime and what was termed “controlled crying” for new babies. Her advice was controversial to say the least and has always divided parents. She has recently made a come back by giving an interview – her first in 17 years – to The Telegraph last week.

She was demonised on the parenting forum Mumsnet, whom she sued and settled with out of court. So controversial proved Ford’s take that a headline from the Guardian at the time noted, “Gina Ford is a respectable baby expert, not a Middle Eastern terrorist”.

Even though this is clarified, I admit I still have some pretty strong views on Gina Ford. However, the bigger question is, why does the parenting advice industry even exist? I would argue that this is a symptom of something even greater than the Mummy Wars; it is a symptom of the collapse of the extended family.

Catholics are very aware of the collapse of the nuclear family, but the extended family – the clan – was historically also a very important aspect of Catholic family life. One of the most famous Catholic clans is the Kennedy clan that gave US politics JFK and his brother Bobby, but every Catholic is a part of the extended family and clan. Godparents and sponsors are a critical part of the extended family, available to give advice to the youngest members of the family.

In such an extended family the Catholic patriarch should be very visible: the grandfather whose advice is sought, and whose direction is given. However, when it comes to new babies and children it has always been the matriarch who has held the power.

In fact, even before the baby came along the mother and father had to become husband and wife. And often it was mothers and aunts who arranged introductions between younger men and women. These days they are told not to interfere and sometimes know very little of the intended spouse until some stray is brought home from some far-flung university or city for Christmas lunch.

In a recent article, Mary Harrington encourages the Aunts to meddle again. If only we had the same thing when it comes to motherhood.

The first problem is the terminology used: parents, parenthood and parenting expert. This move away from motherhood towards gender neutral parenthood is an omen; it is a sign of how motherhood has become something foreign that women need advice on. Advice from the likes of Gina Ford.

Gina Ford is a former maternity nurse who has cared for over 300 babies during her career, which is all well and good. But why do new mothers even need her advice? In the past, parenting experts were called grandmothers, aunts and the interfering but wise old matriarch that lived down the road.

I believe that Gina Ford became so famous because she published her book in 1999, a time when women who were professionally very successful having gone to university started to become mothers.

They often grew up in small families, were rarely around a baby, so they didn’t have a clue when their own baby came along. These new mothers may have been excellent at microbiology, but they were at a loss as to how to get their newborn to sleep.

What’s more, the new mums had moved away from their own mothers “for career reasons”, so granny was not on hand to help their daughter with their new grandchild. Indeed, “granny” was possibly one of those feminists of the late 1960s and early 1970s, encouraging women to make it on their own, although of course she herself would have had her mother on hand when she became a new mum.

So you basically have to go back two generations to find any woman who knew what she was doing when it came to new born babies. Either that, or hire a so-called “maternity nurse” from a Catholic country like Spain or somewhere in South America.

I do not think it is God’s plan for young mothers is to be isolated and without their own mothers or aunts or indeed sisters. It does not happen in less developed countries. But this is the reality for many young mothers today.

This is progress we are told.

New mothers are alone in a big city having moved “for career reasons”. I should know, I was one of them. I had my first child living in London and although a stream of people, including grandparents, came to visit, it was not the same as having someone just down the road or even a car drive away.

I am ashamed to admit that I once called an ambulance when my first was teething. She was screaming the place down, which she never normally did, and I didn’t know what to do. The flashing lights arrived and I was told to give her some Calpol. I’m not sure the shame will ever leave me.

If I had a granny on hand I’m pretty sure she would have diagnosed the problem without recourse to an ambulance. I accept that sometimes the advice can be useless or dangerous, but at least you have the opportunity to ignore it.

Gina Ford was the surrogate granny, the aunt that stepped in at the last moment. It was a defining decade that saw motherhood and the matriarchs give way to other women who had no emotional or family link to the new mum and baby. This was an end of an era, lessening the power once again of women and their important role at home.

There was a lot of money to be made from such parenting experts, whereas the advice handed down from a grandmother to mother to her own daughter was given in love. We would do well to rely on the wisdom and love of our own immediate mothers and grandmothers once again.

(Getty images: Portrait of Princess Elizabeth holding her baby daughter Princess Anne, with the grandmothers Queen Mary (left) and Queen Elizabeth)

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