Parenting: “The most important job”?

By Revd Dr Richard Warden

Parenthood lies at the heart of every society, yet it is surprisingly seldom explored from a philosophical perspective. In this thoughtful essay, Revd Dr Richard Warden reflects on Sir Keir Starmer's claim that being a husband and father is “the most important job”. Drawing on psychology, philosophy, anthropology and his own experience as a parent, Richard asks whether raising children may indeed be one of humanity's greatest responsibilities. Although writing from a liberal Christian perspective, his reflections will resonate with readers of many different worldviews and continue Humanistically Speaking's tradition of publishing thoughtful contributions from beyond the humanist community. Richard is Chair of the Christian Arts Trust.

“And when I leave the biggest job in the country, I shall spend more time on the most important job: being the best husband I can to my fantastic wife Vic... and being the best dad I can to my beautiful children, who are my pride and joy.” Sir Keir Starmer, resignation speech outside No. 10 Downing Street.

AI-generated artistic impression of Keir Starmer's farewell speech. (Note: This scene is intended to evoke family life rather than depict the event accurately.)

As Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer occupied the most powerful elected office in Britain. Yet as he resigned, he made the startling statement that being a husband and a father was “the most important job”. Has he got his priorities wrong? From a purely utilitarian perspective, a case could be made against him. A Prime Minister can influence millions of people for good, whereas a parent directly shapes only a few.

Of course, parenthood is neither possible nor desirable for everyone, and people make immeasurable contributions to life in other ways. But as we consider parenting, maybe Sir Keir was pointing to a profound truth? If we choose the responsibility of raising children, maybe it should be our “most important job”. 

I write from the perspective of a father of two adult children, who also happen to be the editor's nephew and niece. My liberal Christianity also shapes my perspective. Yet whether we approach this subject as atheists (such as Sir Keir), humanists or agnostics, our different wisdom traditions often converge on the vital importance of good parenting.

The darker side of parenting

One of the best-known opening lines in modern poetry is: “They fuck you up, your mum and dad.” Painful, yes, but memorable because there is enough truth in it to make us wince. I suspect my own children would say that, despite my best intentions, occasionally I have proved Philip Larkin right.

Recently in Sainsbury’s, I chatted to a young mother with a newborn baby. I asked whether her parents were around to help. She replied candidly, “No. They're both drug addicts. I've had to leave home to protect myself and my little girl. But my partner's parents have been wonderful.” She had wisely followed Larkin's maxim to “get out as early as you can.” His poem, though, is too cynical for me, and happily the young mother had not followed its final advice: “Don't have any kids yourself.” Instead, she had set out to become the kind of parent she had never experienced.

Of course, not all parents leave emotional wreckage behind. Our own father, born just a few miles from Larkin in Coventry and only a few months later, was a wonderful dad, and David and I were blessed with parents whose love and encouragement shaped our lives for good. As I have reflected on Sir Keir's claim that parenthood is “the most important job”, my thoughts have settled around three themes: existence and wonder; values and culture; and love and risk.

Parenthood # 1 by Mathilde Vhargon (used with the artist's permission)

1. Existence and Wonder

Sir Keir’s statement prompted me to look at the bigger picture, and to marvel at how extraordinary our existence really is. As Carl Sagan showed, if the universe's fourteen-billion-year history were compressed into a single day, humans would appear only in the last few seconds before midnight. Yet in those fleeting moments, matter has somehow become conscious and, on our tiny planet orbiting an ordinary star, the universe has become aware of itself. So far, we have found nowhere else where that has happened.

As a father, I have often marvelled that we are able to create another conscious human being. It is an extraordinary privilege and one reason for me why parenting carries such profound significance. Around 2,500 years ago, the Book of Genesis urged humanity to “be fruitful and multiply”, and in that ancient world of high infant mortality and fragile populations, it made obvious sense, until overpopulation became the world’s problem. But now, the demographic pendulum may be swinging back, because in more than two-thirds of the world's countries, fertility has fallen below the replacement rate. Even Elon Musk has called such declining birth rates “the biggest risk to civilisation”.

This demographic perspective is probably not what Sir Keir had in mind, yet it is surely part of the bigger picture. Obviously without parents there is no next generation, and so in that most fundamental sense, perhaps parenting really can be called humanity's “most important job”.

2. Values and Culture

Bringing children into existence is only the beginning. Parents also carry the primary responsibility for creating the conditions in which their children can flourish - what Aristotle called eudaimonia or human flourishing - and most parents hope their children will become wise, kind and resilient adults.  

A related insight appears in William Wordsworth's famous line, “The Child is father of the Man.” Childhood shapes the adult we become, and children inherit far more than our genes. They absorb our values, habits and, inevitably, some of our failings too. That is part of the immense responsibility and burden of parenthood.

But the importance of parenting extends well beyond individual families. The distinguished anthropologist and humanist Margaret Mead observed that culture itself is not inherited biologically but must be learned anew by every generation. The values, stories and customs that shape a society survive only because they are passed on. Parents become the first custodians of values and culture, laying foundations on which grandparents, teachers, friends and communities continue to build.

That insight finds an intriguing echo in the biblical Book of Proverbs, written almost three thousand years ago: “Train up a child in the way they should go, and when they are old they will not depart from it.” The ancient worldview may have been different, but the underlying insight is remarkably similar: the values we nurture in children today become the culture of tomorrow. If that is true, parenting may again be “the most important job” of all for those who are parents.

3. Love and Risk

Sir Keir also spoke lovingly of his “beautiful children” as his “pride and joy”. At a recent Dorset Humanists meeting, an afternoon was spent discussing the deceptively simple proposition, “All You Need Is Love,” which included parental love. The humanist philosopher Erich Fromm described love as “the active concern for the life and growth of that which we love,” while the psychologist Carl Rogers argued that children flourish through what he called “unconditional positive regard". 

Those are good descriptions of parental love. Children starved of love are starved of the emotional oxygen they need to flourish. More than anything else, the presence or absence of this kind of love may explain Sir Keir’s claim and why he now intends to “spend more time” on it.

During the Dorset Humanists meeting, one mother remarked that she would, without hesitation, lay down her life for her children. Evolution may explain this; it does not diminish its grandeur. To grow another human being within your own body, bring them safely through birth, sustain their life from your own body during their earliest months, place their life before your own, and accept lifelong responsibility for someone who never asked to be born, is one of nature's most astonishing achievements.

But such parental love always carries risk. Just as politics offers no guarantee of success, neither does parenting. Families fracture and relationships fail.  For me, one of the most powerful images of parental love - and risk - is the New Testament parable of the Prodigal Son. Whether read as religious scripture or simply as wisdom literature, its appeal is universal. The father cannot prevent his younger son from making disastrous choices. He lets him leave, waits, hopes and, when he returns, runs to embrace and forgive him. It is a powerful reminder that parents must give their children both “roots and wings” and that parenting is a daunting vocation. It demands the deepest love we are capable of, together with extraordinary reserves of patience, and forgiveness and hope.

The most important job?

Good luck to Sir Keir as he resigns as Prime Minister to focus on “being the best husband... and dad” he can be. He reminds us that while only one person can occupy the highest political office in the country, millions are entrusted with the profoundly important work of raising the next generation. We all began life utterly dependent on parents, or on others who lovingly stepped into that role, and we are fortunate indeed if they loved us well enough to help us flourish.

I like to think that when a child is born, a parent is born too. From that moment onwards, parenthood becomes a vocation from which there is no real retirement. In that sense, it lasts, “till death us do part”. Perhaps that is why Sir Keir’s remark resonated so deeply with me. Raising the next generation is not simply another task in life. For those who undertake it, it may indeed be “the most important job” of all.