Unequal Childhoods

by Annette Lareau

  The Tallinger home is a forty-year-old, white, two-story house with four bedrooms and three bathrooms. The house is located on a cul-de-sac in a quiet suburb near a major northeastern city. The surrounding homes are well kept; many sell for a quarter of a million dollars. The house has a large picture window facing the street and overlooking an expansive green lawn. There is a large tree in the middle of the front yard; a swing made of a thick white rope dangles from an upper limb. Near the asphalt driveway that leads to the garage stand two tall poles that support a basketball hoop and backboard emblazoned with the official NBA logo. A seven-foot-long, fine-mesh black net is stretched immediately behind the backboard and poles to keep errant balls from tumbling into the neighbors’ bushes. A wooden gate provides access to the large, fenced backyard and swimming pool. All in all, it’s a classic home in the suburbs.

  Inside, there are hardwood floors, wallpapered rooms, and an assortment of pets (a dog, Farley; a turtle, Ivan; and assorted fish). A baby grand piano shares the living room with color-coordinated furniture (including antique tables and a wingback chair) positioned on thick rugs. Most action, however, takes place in the kitchen, the den (where the television is located), or the large screened-in porch that overlooks the backyard and pool. Housecleaners come regularly, but the Tallinger children help out by making their beds, feeding the pets, and putting the family’s newspapers, cans, and bottles out for the recycling pickup each week. Mr. Tallinger oversees the outdoors; he periodically calls a man who comes and mows the lawn. He also manages the chemicals for the pool as well as the gas grill. When his wife is away for work, he takes care of the children by himself, making him a more active father in parenting than many.

  Mr. Tallinger and Ms. Tallinger enjoy sports, especially golf, which they play at the elite private country club where they are members. Both are forty, and they have been married twelve years. They are “retreads,” as Ms. Tallinger puts it; when they met, each had been previously married and divorced (neither had had children). Ms. Tallinger is trim and fit, with fashionably cut, short blond hair. She has a calm, unruffled air about her.

  She often is stylishly dressed, as [she is] one afternoon returning from work in a black-and-white herringbone light wool skirt, which falls mid-knee, and fuchsia wool cropped jacket. She wears white hose and black two-inch heels.

  Mr. Tallinger is a tall (just over six feet), broad-shouldered man with thinning reddish-blond hair who favors expensive suits for work and golf shirts and long khaki shorts on weekends. He likes to make dry, witty comments, delivered with a slightly ironic twist. For example, when asked, “How are you?” he often responds, with only the slightest hint of a smile, “Peachy-keen.”

  Both Tallingers hold bachelor’s degrees from the same Ivy League college, where both were involved in sports. Each is a consultant (Mr. Tallinger works in fund-raising, Ms. Tallinger in personnel). They earn a combined annual income of $175,000; until near the end of the study, both worked for the same firm. The Tallingers have sufficiently flexible hours to take time off for their children’s school events, but they often work on evenings and weekends. At the time of the study, both also were required to travel. Mr. Tallinger spends an average of three days on the road per week and often does not arrive home from work until 9:30 P.M. Ms. Tallinger tries to avoid overnights. As a result, four or five days a month she gets up very early (4:30 A.M.) and takes a plane out of state, returning home after dinner. Their child-care arrangements include an all-day program about five minutes from home for the youngest boy and an after-school program for the two older boys.

  The Tallingers’ three sons range in age from ten (Garrett) to seven (Spencer) to four (Sam). Sam is a blond-haired, sturdy-looking preschooler. His laugh is a high-pitched giggle. Spencer, a second-grader, is outgoing and talkative. Fourth-grader Garrett, a tall, thin, serious boy with blond hair, is the “target child” of the study. Here’s how Mr. Tallinger describes his oldest son:

  He’s shy and quiet, not very outgoing when you first meet him. But he’s got a fierce desire to please, so he’s very compliant. But he is also still very competitive. He likes to win, but he’s still easy to manage.

  Unlike Spencer, who keeps up an almost nonstop stream of conversation, Garrett is a selective speaker. He will toss a ball around silently or watch television without commenting on commercials or programs. Sometimes, though, especially when he is away from his parents, he is livelier. He makes up little diversionary games. For example, one night around 8:00 P.M., while waiting in line at Taco Bell after a baseball game, Garrett makes faces at himself in the mirror. He also holds his breath several times, for as long as possible. His face turns bright red, but no one in the family comments.

  Observations and interviews show Garrett to be both a good student and a good athlete. During a parent-teacher conference, Garrett’s teacher described him as “right where he should be.” In interpersonal interactions, he seems poised and sophisticated. When meeting an adult, he shakes hands, looks the person in the eye, and generally seems at ease. As an athlete, he is proficient, as this field note, taken during soccer practice with the elite Intercounty team, reveals:

  The young boys are now divided into two teams and they begin to scrimmage. Garrett is a stickler at his defensive position and does not let anyone pass him. His playing style is coolly aggressive. He doesn’t seem to menace and overpower the other players, but instead projects an image of top control.

  Garrett, like his parents, enjoys sports. His bedroom dresser is jammed with trophies, especially from soccer. He also has many soccer patches from team exchanges. At school, Garrett is popular and is widely seen as the best athlete in his class. During recess, he and other boys (with the rare girl) will take a soccer ball and, rushing to the grassy area, kick it around until recess ends.

  Garrett’s friends are white, as are most of the people he interacts with, whether he is at home, at school, or on the playing field. The family’s baby-sitters are white teenagers; the man who comes to mow the lawn is white as well. Among the children in the two fourth-grade classes at Garrett’s school, there are three Blacks and one Asian; about 90 percent of the school’s total enrollment is white. Garrett’s piano teacher is white, and so are all the members of the piano recital crowd. His swim team is all white. In fact, the field-worker who accompanied the Tallingers to their country club (for swim practice) saw only white children, parents, and club staff out by the pool (except for one Black swim instructor). Garrett’s all-white baseball team occasionally plays teams that include Black children.

  ORGANIZATION OF DAILY LIFE: DEVELOPING GARRETT

  In the Tallinger family, the older children’s schedules set the pace of life for all family members. Mr. and Ms. Tallinger often have limited time between work and the start of an activity. They rush home, rifle through the mail, prepare snacks, change out of their work clothes, make sure the children are appropriately dressed and have the proper equipment for the upcoming activity, find their car keys, put the dog outside, load the children and equipment into the car, lock the door, and drive off. This pattern repeats itself, with slight variations, day after day. Garrett has the most activities. Thus, it is his schedule, in particular, that determines where the adults must be and when they must be there, sets the timing and type of meals for everyone, including Sam, and even shapes the family’s vacation plans.

  As Table 2, showing Garrett’s activities, indicates, during the month of May, Garrett has baseball, Forest soccer (a private soccer club), Inter-county soccer (an all-star, elite team of boys drawn from various soccer clubs), swim team practice, piano lessons, and saxophone. Only the saxophone lessons take place at school; all the rest are extracurricular activities that Garrett’s parents have enrolled him in, with his consent. The table doesn’t include Spencer’s activities; nor does it reflect the parents’ commitments. During the week of May 23, when Garrett has his regular baseball, soccer, and swim team events, Mr. Tallinger is scheduled to umpire a game on Monday eveni
ng, and Spencer has a baseball game on Tuesday and a Cub Scout meeting on Thursday. On the weekend, the entire family drives four hours to an out-of-state soccer tournament. They are gone Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and return home Monday. On Tuesday, Garrett has swim team practice, soccer tryouts, and Intercounty soccer practice. On Wednesday, he has swim team practice (which he can ride his bike to) and a baseball game. On Thursday, when Garrett has practice for swim team and for Forest soccer, Spencer has a baseball game at 5:45 P.M. Then, on Saturday, Spencer has another baseball game (at 9:15 A.M.) and Garrett has two soccer games, one at 10:15 A.M. and one at 3:00 P.M. Not all middle-class families, of course, are as sports-oriented—or as busy—as the Tallinger family. Still, many middle-class children in the study had a hectic schedule of activities. Middle-class children also had more activities than did working-class and poor children (see Table C4, Appendix C). There were some gender differences in activities; boys had more athletic activities than did girls (Tables C5 and C6, Appendix C).

  TABLE 2. GARRETT TALLINGER’S SCHEDULE OF ACTIVITIES1

  Mr. and Ms. Tallinger each have out-of-town travel scheduled in May. During the week of May 9, Mr. Tallinger, who had been slated to be on the West Coast, returns early. He takes a flight at midnight on Wednesday, arrives home Thursday morning, sleeps for a few hours, and then heads off to the office. That night, he takes Garrett to his soccer practice. The week of May 23, Mr. Tallinger is away overnight on Tuesday and comes home just before 10:00 P.M. on Wednesday. The next day, May 26, Ms. Tallinger catches a 6:30 A.M. flight out of state but returns home by 8:00 P.M. The following Wednesday repeats this pattern of Mr. Tallinger arriving home very late on Tuesday night and Ms. Tallinger leaving for a trip out of state early the next morning.

  The sheer number of activities increases the potential for overlapping events and last-minute conflicts. Thus, all events—including outings for Sam—have to be scheduled:

  Louise returns from getting the mail. She stands in the doorway and exclaims, “And Sam, this is for you!” She opens up the envelope and Sam scurries over next to her. She hands Sam the card (an invitation to a birthday party), and he smiles as he looks at the dinosaur-like animal on the front of the invitation.

  Four-year-old Sam is already aware of the importance of the family calendar. He knows that his older brothers’ commitments may preempt this invitation:

  [Louise] says, “I know we have to be somewhere on the eleventh. If we are home in the morning, you can go to this.” . . . Louise walks over to the calendar and flips ahead to June. She looks at the calendar for a moment. Sam asks hopefully, with a trace of concern, “Can I go to it?” Louise says, “You’re in luck; we’re home in the morning.”

  In some ways, though, Sam has more autonomy than his older brothers; less of Sam’s daily life is taken up with discrete, prescheduled activities. Neither Garrett nor Spencer typically has long stretches of time to organize or define for himself. Scheduled activities are so central to their lives that the boys use activities to keep track of days of the week (including evenings). Garrett and Spencer also designate time as before, during, or after a given activity (e.g., soccer, practice, swimming, and piano). Moreover, like other middle-class children we observed, the boys spend a significant amount of time simply waiting for the next event. Most of their activities—including school—require adult-provided transportation, and most of these activities begin and end on timetables set by adults. Sports, such as Garrett’s baseball games, all occur in settings organized and planned by adults; the kind of “pick-up” games of softball or basketball with neighborhood children that we observed among working-class and poor children are rare to nonexistent in Garrett’s life.

  Of course, not every moment of every day is adult-determined. The Tallinger boys sometimes take the bus home after school, make themselves a snack, and watch television for about an hour until their parents get home, all without adult supervision. Garrett, Spencer, and Sam also play outdoors informally. Before and after scheduled events, the three often run around the yard playing baseball (with a tennis ball), or they ride their bikes. Sometimes, their parents join them for backyard ball games. The Tallinger children do not, however, go out and play all day, the way children from poor families typically do. There are not many children in the Tallingers’ neighborhood, and no boys their ages. Sometimes, a friend bikes over to visit, but more often, a parent drives the children to “play dates.”

  The Tallingers enjoy wordplay as well as physical play. One night, before the parents sit down to dinner, the boys tell riddles to each other and to the field-worker.

  Spencer smilingly begins to probe me with a battery of riddles. He begins by asking, “Mary, if a rooster lays an egg on a barn roof, which side will the egg fall off?” I smile and pause for a moment, then say with a tone of mock suspicion, “Well, let’s see. I didn’t think that roosters laid eggs.”

  Joking occurs at the dinner table, too. Spencer reminds his mother to sign the form for his field trip to the art museum. In a display of intellectual competitiveness, Garrett tests his brother’s knowledge of Van Gogh. This inspires Mr. Tallinger to wordplay of his own:

  Garrett then challenges Spencer, “Do you know what Van Gogh did?” Spencer says, “Yes, he cut off his ear and sent it to his friend.” Don chortles quietly and says, “So you could say, he sent it ear mail!” Everyone laughs at the pun.

  Ms. Tallinger also enjoys being playful with her sons, as the following example shows:

  In his bedroom, [Garrett] stands close to her, eye to eye, goofing around, looking right into her eyes, and then lifting his hands so his palms are pressing up against her palms. She plays along, not pushing him. She does it three times and laughs.

  This evolves into a game of stare-down:

  [Garrett] says, “Stare at me. Stare-down? And see who blinks first?” She says, “Okay.” They stand, palm to palm, staring intently. Louise blinks first and moves away; they both laugh. He says, “Want to do it again?” She does it again, and they both hold it for about fifteen seconds and then, once again, she looks away. He laughs quietly, but pleased; she laughs also.

  Quiet moments occur, too. One early morning, for instance, while he is still sleepy, Garrett slides his arm around his father’s waist and stands next to him in the doorway to his parents’ bedroom. Mr. Tallinger, dressed in a blue-and-white bathrobe, puts his arm around his son’s shoulders. The two remain peacefully entwined for a few moments.

  Periods of informal play and quiet moments between family members generally take place at the margins, however. The centerpiece of the Tallinger children’s lives is their organized activities. These activities reach into the core of family life. Piano, soccer, baseball, and basketball become conversational focal points, both with parents and with visiting adult friends and relatives. For children like Garrett, who are not talkative by nature, exchanges related to organized activities can be short. For example, after the first practice for Intercounty soccer, Mr. Tallinger and Garrett “discuss” the new season as they come home in the car:

  DON: So, how’s coach Money?

  GARRETT: Good.

  DON: Did he talk to you at all, or just drill you?

  GARRETT: Drills.

  DON: Did he say anything about positions?

  GARRETT: No.

  Aside from a question Mr. Tallinger asks about who the “ball hog” is, this exchange constitutes the sum total of father-son interaction during the fifteen-minute ride home.

  Garrett is capable of warm, intimate exchanges with both of his parents, but this kind of dialogue occurs infrequently. More common are conversations like the one with Mr. Tallinger, described above, and the one with Ms. Tallinger, described below. Notice that although Garrett and his mother make a clear emotional connection as they talk, the subject of their conversation is drawn from an activity of Garrett’s:

  (Louise sits on the edge of Garrett’s bed; her arms are on his chest. Spencer is sleeping in his brother’s room that night, to fr
ee a bedroom for the visiting field-worker. The room is dark, except for the light coming from the hallway. Louise and Garrett are discussing songs from the spring concert in which Garrett had performed earlier that evening.)

  MOM: Oh, you know what? I confused “From a Distance” [with] that song you sang tonight, “From Where I Stand.” I got it confused with “From a Distance,” which is a Bette Midler song.

  GARRETT: What does it sound like?

  MOM (starts singing): From a distance — (breaks off, laughs, starts to sing and stops; can’t remember) — I don’t remember. You know your mother!

  SPENCER (teasing): From a distance, I don’t remember the words.

  MOM: It’s a great song.

  They chat some about which teachers did and did not take part in the concert, and then say good night.

  CONCERTED CULTIVATION: LOVE’S LABORS MULTIPLIED

  Children’s activities create substantial work for their parents. Parents fill out enrollment forms, write checks, call to arrange car pools, wash uniforms, drive children to events, and make refreshments. In the Tallinger family, these tasks are regularly doubled, depending on which boy is doing what. Simply getting ready for an activity—collecting the equipment, organizing the children, loading the car—can be exhausting.

  For adults, in addition to the labor of preparing, there is the labor of watching. During one chilly evening in May, Mr. Tallinger, who had flown back home on the midnight “red eye,” worked in the morning, and taken a two-hour nap in the afternoon, leaves the soccer practice. He explains that he is going to a local convenience store to get a cup of coffee:

  At 7:05 P.M. Don said that he was going to go get coffee. He asked Tom (another father) if he wanted any. Tom shook his head. Don asked me if I wanted any. I asked if it would be all right if I go with him (mostly because I was cold). Don said sure. On the way to the store Don said, “I don’t really want coffee. I was just bored. I used to go to all his practices and all his games, but now that he does so much I don’t go all the time. But this was the first practice.”