Initiatives designed to improve the lives of children are ten-a-penny since the government’s flagship Sure Start initiative, with New Labour and the Conservatives vying to give the most detailed policy prescription for what makes a good childhood. What current initiatives all have in common is their focus on the behaviour of parents, and when politicians talk about ‘problem parents’, we all know who they mean. From the war on junk food and youth binge drinking to the pressure exerted on parents by schools to improve their own literacy levels, recycling habits, and compliance with healthy lifestyles, the orthodoxy of ‘good parenting’ often seems to be a thinly-veiled attack on the way adults live their lives – often with a heavy dose of snobbery. Where the welfare state attempted to counter the problems facing low-income families through financial assistance, the therapeutic state pursues these families with a relentless programme of emotional support and childrearing advice.  Are a child’s life chances really determined more by parental behaviour than by family income? Is it right to use children as a conduit for attempting to change the behaviour of ‘hard-to-reach’ adults? What makes a ‘poor parent’ anyway?