Aims and objectives of the seminars were:

• To consolidate a genuine interdisciplinary research agenda around the construction and working of contemporary parenting culture
• To elaborate a conceptual framework that can capture the working of contemporary parenting culture
• To provide an interdisciplinary forum for informed discussion and development of our understanding of the way that intensive motherhood and the new parenting culture works and informs contemporary child-rearing practices
• To track the way practices such as infant feeding, sleeping, disciplining etc. are influenced and modified by the demands of our parenting culture
• To consider gender and parenting culture, and in particular to track change and continuity in cultures of fatherhood, and how this relates to change and continuity in fathering practices
• To involve post post-graduate and early career stage colleagues in this project
• To bring together researchers, parenting organisations, policy makers from Britain and abroad in order inform the deliberation of the public on this issue
• To widen the agenda of policy makers and help them to reflect on how their activities bears upon the experience of different constituencies of parents.