Introduction

In this chapter attention is focused on changing cultural ideas and understandings of the quality of childhood in one Nordic national case context, Finland. By examining the emergence of a new concept, ‘illfare of children’, in the public discussion and child welfare politics, we complement the traditional structural and institutional levels of analysis of welfare models, policies and practices. The approach on studying ideas explaining how welfare politics change has grown in popularity in social sciences, especially during recent politically and financially volatile times (for example, Björklund, 2008). Analysing the dominant concepts, ideas or discourses of welfare debate in any society may offer a new kind of perspective to understand the dawning directions of welfare politics in uncertainty.

At the turn of the millennium, concern over the ‘illfare’ of children became a central topic in the Finnish media. The debate had a completely new tone. Until then, we had been accustomed to hearing that our children are the healthiest in the world and that the welfare of our children is reasonably well safeguarded, thanks to the support, service and educational systems embedded in the Nordic welfare model (see, for example, Millar and Warman, 1996, p 46; also Eydal and Kröger in this book). Now, the concern over the increasing illfare of children was being debated with an unprecedented intensity. The collective awareness of Finnish childhood appeared to be undergoing a sea change, for according to the most pointed comments illfare was threatening nearly every child. Even children from ‘normal’ middle-class families seemed to be faring ill, so ill in fact that they were able to commit terrible crimes. Public concern over the illfare of children has been both widespread and of such a nature that it appeals strongly to the emotions. At the moment, the most heated public debate seems to have passed, but the new concept that has been introduced – ‘children's illfare’, as opposed to welfare – still lives on in the talk of many professionals working with children, for example. The premise of increasing illfare is used to justify various administrative and political development projects aimed at solving social problem situations involving children.