| Abstract [eng] |
The dissertation addresses the issue of infant care and the child’s early upbringing in contemporary Lithuania (the first two decades of the twenty-first century). The study pursues the theoretical approach of anthropology of childhood, which focuses on the pluralism of child care models that exist in modern/postmodern societies and distinguishes between different trends of care. The research shows that the child-centred approach to children (including the infant), care for them and their upbringing prevails both among contemporary parents of the Lithuanian middle class and in the public discourse of contemporary Lithuania in general; on the other hand, a critical attitude to the manifestations of child-centrism in both caring for and raising a child is also quite marked. The study concludes that the phenomenon typical of the modern/postmodern societies characterised by an abundance of information and pluralism of ideas is also observed in contemporary Lithuania: the split in the conception of child care (including infant care), due to which the decision regarding the child care model is one of the largest challenges facing contemporary parents. The study shows that in modern Lithuania, parental attitudes to baby care and child upbringing take shape when globally-spreading modern/postmodern conceptions of childhood, the child, child care and upbringing clash with local conceptions of the child (including baby), parents, their rights and duties, the human, interpersonal relations, naturalness, morality, and other conceptions of the aspects of the social order, which are handed down from generation to generation and are idiosyncratically interpreted in the contexts of a post-Soviet country. |
