Arnup noted that ideas about appropriate mothering and childcare changed dramatically in the post-war years and many women doubted their own abilities to meet new and changing standards. Arnup also found that rapid urbanization contributed to the rise of the “child rearing expert.” Many women no longer consulted their own mothers, as they may have in the past, either because they did not live close to them or because expectations and standards for child-raising had changed so fundamentally from one generation to the next that their mothers’ insights could no longer be trusted. In fact, seeking out “folk wisdom” was actively frowned upon by medical and child development experts. “Do not try out fancy theories learned over the back fence” (Arnup, 1996, p. 126), warned the Department of National Health and Welfare of Canada in 1949. Moreover, as Arnup poignantly observed, women sought out advice and professional services to break the isolation and loneliness they experienced raising young children in the “private domain” of the domestic sphere.

Arnup’s explanations for the reasons why many mothers sought out child-raising advice (and why some resisted this advice) lend new insights into the reasons often cited for parents’ reported preference to participate in family literacy programs designed to meet the literacy needs of children and parents simultaneously. Family literacy researchers and promoters often portray interest in family literacy programming as a result of mothers’ natural desires to help their kids, and “give them the best they can.” While these are certainly likely motivations, additional motives may relate to the fact that just as standards for child-raising have changed, so too have the standards for children’s literacy knowledge in the years before and during school. In the face of extensive and sometimes contradictory advice from experts, it is not surprising that parents perceive themselves as lacking. Moreover, family literacy programs also provide opportunities for social connection and social support for parenting, something very appealing to break the isolation of raising children alone in the home.

The rise of psychology as a field of study and practice in the Twentieth Century has also contributed to parents’ self-doubt, as it created and maintained standards and categories for children’s development against which children and mothers would be judged as “normal” or deviant. Gleason (1999) analysed psychology’s influences on Canadian families since the Second World War. She suggested that psychology’s preoccupation with the development of “normal” personalities in children can be traced to wider political and economic concerns of the 1950s: