Here is a snapshot of how a well-off couple (let’s call them Anna and Tom)
manage their lives in 2007. In order to get pregnant, Anna visits a
fertility therapist, then an acupuncturist and, finally, an IVF specialist.
In time, Anna and Tom have a baby, Archie. When Archie arrives, Anna’s
mother feels a bit excluded because of all the new parenting advice and her
daughter’s decision to adopt the Gina Ford method, on the recommendation of
her maternity nurse. (Her mother is astonished to find the nurse advising
Anna on baby-friendly scents.) Within the next few months, Archie attends a
cranial osteopath and baby yoga. Tom gives up smoking with the aid of the
Paul McKenna book, and Anna resumes sessions with her personal trainer. When
Archie is six months old, Anna and Tom buy a puppy, which they send to a
trainer, then, when the dog proves to be a handful, to a dog psychologist.
By now, it is time to extend the house, which Anna organises with an architect
and, after a few false starts, a project manager. Then it’s time to go back
to work, so she books an appointment with the dietician who diagnosed Kate
Winslet’s food allergies (not cheap, but look at Kate) and calls on a
wardrobe detoxer to sort out what still works and what doesn’t. The garden
needs fixing, but the landscape architect they want isn’t available, so they
wait.
Another month goes by and Anna’s friends persuade her that it’s now the “baby
whisperer”, Tracy Hogg, who has the secret of infant happiness sewn up, so,
after a tearful consultation, Anna switches. Tom watches a documentary on
television about hormones in the water and has a filter fitted the following
week. Then he decides that his man breasts are probably just weight gain,
and that the solution is the GI diet (according to an article), so Anna buys
the book, then clears out the cupboards and stashes them with pulses.
Both of them decide to give up drink while they are at it, because new
statistics reveal that Anna is a problem drinker and Tom a full-blown
alcoholic (plus, Anna may have stunted Archie by having a glass of wine a
week during pregnancy). They also move the office in their house further
away from Archie’s bedroom because of the WiFi scare.
Tom and Anna’s world probably seems fairly unremarkable, apart from being on
the extravagant side. But take another look and you notice something about
their lifestyle that is dramatically different from that of families in a
similar situation 10 years ago. Tom, Anna and Archie are constantly in the
care of so-called experts. Most of the decisions in their lives – from
paint colours to potty training – are made in consultation with
specialists. Anna is not what we think of as a high-maintenance woman (she
doesn’t have regular facials, or spend silly money on handbags), but she
pays regularly for advice in situations where her mother would have relied
on her own instinct.
She and Tom occasionally watch Gillian McKeith’s You Are What You Eat, Anthea
Turner’s Perfect Housewife and 10 Years Younger. They laugh at how cluttered
the TV channels are with programmes on how to improve your lot, because this
is not how they see themselves at all. They look at hiring experts as a
modern lifestyle choice for a certain affluent stratum of society that is
well informed and wants the best – like eating organic.
SUCKERS FOR INFORMATION
But there’s more than affluence at work here. We are becoming a culture that
likes to be told what to do by people who claim to have the answers. The
British used to be renowned for their caution – we pride ourselves on
sniffing out humbug in politicians and people in authority – but pick
out any smart, well-off woman (a barrister, say) and she will think nothing
of placing her wardrobe in the hands of a consultant, her anniversary in the
hands of a party-planner and her photograph collection in the care of a
personal archivist.
And it’s not just the chattering classes. Not everyone can afford the
professional input, but that doesn’t mean we don’t buy into the idea of the
ultimate advice. All of us are suckers for the latest information on weight
loss, ageing, quick and delicious recipes, and where to buy bedroom lamps.
You could say that this has always been the case, but the difference is that
there’s now a new answer every week, and still we keep chasing the latest
update.
So, you meet the hypnotist Paul McKenna at a party (as I did recently) and you
want to hear the secret of losing weight straight from the lips of the man
whose programme has such a high success rate. I know how to lose
weight, but that didn’t stop me queueing up for the expert’s personal
vision: I wanted to be told, rather than trust my own judgment, just as I
want to be told, in the gym by an instructor, exactly how many sit-ups
constitute the perfect workout. Ask McKenna if he thinks this is healthy,
and he will say that relying on experts is wholly positive. “I have a life
coach,” he says. “I sometimes hire a personal trainer. I have an accountant,
a manager, a business troubleshooter. Specialisation is the future. These
people save you time, they are efficient and they give you dispassionate
advice.”
THE PRESSURE OF CHOICE, THE PURSUIT OF PERFECTION
Too much choice and too much information, along with a shortage of time, is
the standard explanation for this burgeoning culture of dependency.
Especially as choice comes with the pressure to get it right. “It’s the
drive for perfection,” says a friend, who is, basically, Anna. “In the past,
you had a dog that was a bit badly behaved and a house painted magnolia, but
now that isn’t good enough. The dog has to be the perfectly behaved puppy,
the paint has to be exactly the right shade. I’ve just had my whole house
redone in a darker shade of white because I was told the creamier colour was
passé.”
Campbell & Bathurst, a style consultancy, is one of the many businesses
catering to the self-improvement treadmill. “People use us because they are
overwhelmed by what’s on offer,” says Laura Campbell. “But it’s also
competitive. They want to look younger than their real age, fashionable and
different from their friends. There is a lot of pressure these days to get
it right.”
WE NO LONGER LISTEN TO OUR MOTHERS
Even so, choice and the drive for perfection don’t altogether explain why we
are suddenly delegating the most personal decisions to strangers. Frank
Furedi, a professor of sociology at the University of Kent and the author of
Paranoid Parenting, argues that trusting our intuition has become the
amateurish option. “Everything in our culture constantly discourages us from
learning from the example of our family. The central message of parenting
books is, ‘Don’t do it like your mother and father. If you do, you’re
screwing up: you need an expert.’ ”
The way Furedi sees it, our dependency on professionals is driven by the
undermining of relationships we used to rely on – good old-fashioned
family and friends. “The default position is that the wisdom of the past is
wrong,” he says. And if you think about it, it’s true. Do you stay true to
your mother’s stew recipe, or did you think you had to start all over again
with Nigella? Do you follow her gardening tips, or did you feel obliged to
call in a professional to get the modern take? We have lost that touchstone.
“Nothing is right or wrong any more, it’s research-based,” Furedi says.
“Then that research is contradicted. If you have a 12-year-old child, think
how much conflicting advice you’ve had – your baby should sleep
on its front, on its back, in a blacked-out room.”
LISTEN TO ME!
It’s this claim and counterclaim, the scare followed by the retraction a few
years down the line, that has really undermined our confidence. Think of a
fact of life that you take for granted, anything – little children need
their mothers, pets are good for you – and I will show you research
that proves the opposite. So we distrust what we know and end up running to
the people who have the luxury of certainty.
Still, paid strangers or not, at least they are available. The life coach Suzy
Greaves believes there is “a modern craving for connection” that
professionals satisfy. “Everyone seems to be so busy now, but people want to
be really listened to, and for you to make sense of their world. And, if
they can pay, then that is a guilt-free hour from someone with no agenda.”
As she says: “If the answer for you is to emigrate to Australia, that’s not
what your family is going to be advising.” And, let’s face it: what family
is capable of providing the kind of attention we need, now that we’ll settle
for nothing less than the best?
WHAT OUR PARENTS BELIEVE
- That drink is a good thing for normal, stable people (not a substance that
should carry a health warning in the home).
- That pregnant women can go about their lives quite happily, as opposed to
being at grievous risk from any number of foodstuffs and situations,
including the sun (news just in).
- That fruit and vegetables are good for you (and don’t need to be reassessed
for their antioxidant content every six months: seehoax over “super”
properties of blueberries and pomegranates).
- That running around outside as a child is a positive thing (not a
paedophile’s dream come true).
- That you interfere with the body you were born with at your peril (see the
HRT scare, the silicone-implant scare).
- That children need parents who establish boundaries (or they end up in
programmes being told what to do by Nanny Frost).
- That what you feed your children is as important as turning up for the
school play (a fact it took Jamie Oliver to make fashionable again).
- That our tap water is among the best in the world. (Turns out we can
actually drink it again. Yes!)
BRAND YOU: THE COMPANIES THAT WILL TAKE OVER YOUR WHOLE LIFE
Quintessentially
Do you want to be first in line at the latest club opening, have a table at
the hottest restaurant, be top of the next must-have waiting list? Do you
want celebrity friends, invites to Elton’s and backstage at Bestival via a
chopper drop-off? And do you need to ask: “What are the must-haves? What is
the hottest, hardest-to-get thing right now?”Then this is the life
Quintessentiallywill provide: fashion by numbers from Chloé and Stella
McCartney; Wag-inspired tans and manicures on repeat order; daily dinners at
Nobu Berkeley, Hakkasan or the Wolseley, followed by fame-hagging at the
Cuckoo Club, Boujis or Annabel’s. If you have a superego and a pit of cash,
this company will lay on everything you could possibly need, from your
wardrobe to the drink you order at the bar.
Mr & Mrs Smith
Do you want dirty weekends without the mess of research; sex in the missionary
position on a crisply made bed? Do you want choice-edited destinations with
guaranteed chic cred (“You stayed at the Bulgari hotel? How impressive”), a
guarantee that you will “fit in”, that there will be no surprises and that
you’ll always have “a ready topic of conversation”? Let leisure company Mr &
Mrs Smith take care of it.
With its travel guides, calendars and CDs, it will tell you to stay here (the
Splendido in Portofino, the Cipriani in Venice), shop here (Bill Amberg, Jo
Malone), eat this (lobster and champagne) at this place (Gordon Ramsay,
L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon), while listening to this (Ralph Myerz, Sebastien
Tellier). Then you can just stand there and, eventually, other Mr & Mrs
Smith couples will turn up, so you won’t have to talk to your partner any
more. One-size-fits-all “romance” without trying.
Whole Foods
Do you want to pay lip service to environmental concerns, be sure that no
chemicals are used in your shopping and make no concessions on taste and
luxury, all while carrying a bag that says: “This person is rich, but they
care”? Whole Foods will give you instant karma. It may currently comprise
just one retail outlet in Britain, but from this you can break into
convincing stories about your food’s provenance over dinner, garnering
praise from guests for the recherché delicacies from independent
smallholdings.You can dress in eco-labels People Tree, Howies and Under the
Canopy(or just have them in the wardrobe: design-wise, they don’t quite cut
it in Notting Hill), and pick up the new buzzwords – biocompatible,
bioavailable, NLP, nutritional counselling – from a single trip to the
store. Then you can drive home in your Porsche Cayenne Turbo.
Daylesford and Bamford
Do you coo over Cameron at drinks parties in Belgravia? Drive the Merc down to
the second house in the Cotswolds? Holiday in St Barts while taking a break
from your vanity profession (jewellery design, photography)? Then you’ve got
the Daylesford and Bamford family life. Bamford, the fashion offshoot,
provides “casual luxury” looks for homes and clothes (chunky knits and
chinos for boys; studied linen for girls), trophy hampers for the Season,
like-minded friendships at the supper clubs, potted guides to the
environment at the talks, dinner-party advisers, bed linen and “very
special” towels. Hell, you can even wow your daily with organic
rosemary-scented toilet cleaner.
Fleur Britten
