Unequal Childhoods

by Annette Lareau

  Like his mother, Alex also engages in a pattern of conversational give and take with the doctor. And, like his mother, Alexander strives to customize his time with the doctor. When he offers his prepared-in-advance question about the bumps in his armpits, he gets the physician’s undivided attention and an implicit acknowledgment that this condition is a valid subject and worthy of consideration in the exam:

  DOCTOR: Well, now the most important question. Do you have any questions you want to ask me before I do your physical?

  ALEX: Um . . . only one. I’ve been getting some bumps on my arms, right around here [indicates underarm].

  DOCTOR: Underneath?

  ALEX: Yeah.

  DOCTOR: Okay, I’ll have to take a look at those when I come in closer to do the checkup. And I’ll see what they are and what I can do. Do they hurt or itch?

  ALEX: No, they’re just there.

  DOCTOR: Okay, I’ll take a look at those bumps for you.

  At the end of the office visit, when the doctor turns to Alex’s mother to ask, “Any questions or worries on your part?” Ms. Williams replies, “No . . . he seems to be coming along very nicely.”16 This statement succinctly captures her view of her son as a project that is progressing well. The exchange also underscores the relative equality of status between Ms. Williams and the doctor—the tone implies a conversation between peers (with the child as a legitimate participant), rather than a communication from a person in authority to persons in a subordinate position.

  Throughout this office visit, Alex makes repeated use of his many language skills. And, in remembering to raise the question he prepared in advance, he gains the doctor’s full attention and focuses it on an issue of his choosing. In so doing, he successfully shifts the balance of power away from the adults and toward himself. The transition goes smoothly. Alex is used to being treated with respect. He is seen as special and as a person worthy of adult attention and interest. These are key characteristics of the strategy of concerted cultivation. Alex is not “showing off” during his checkup. He is behaving much as he does with his parents—he reasons, negotiates, and jokes with equal ease. As the next section explains, there are certain disadvantages (at least for parents) attached to teaching children how to customize a situation. Middle-class children sometimes use their skills to customize their parents’ disciplinary tactics.

  DISCIPLINE THROUGH LANGUAGE

  Middle-class children, we found, often use their verbal skills to argue with their parents. Rather than following parents’ directives silently, as children in the working-class and poor homes generally do, middle-class children tend to bargain, using reasoning to secure small advantages. For instance, after a baseball game, the Williams family heads directly to a school performance in which Alex has a solo part. As they travel in the car, the family discusses foods that actors are cautioned against eating before a performance. Alex agrees to wait to eat his sandwich until after the play. When his mother tells him to stop snacking on potato chips, he secures an agreement to be permitted to eat a little more:

  Alex gets out a bag of potato chips. Mr. Williams says, “Bet you can’t eat just one.” Alex takes a bite of one, then begins to twist-tie the bag closed, but changes his mind and opens the bag again. He eats about five more, then comments, “You’re right. I can’t eat only one.” Ms. Williams says, “Okay, Alexander. That’s enough. Put them away.” Alex: “Just one more?” Ms. Williams: “Okay, one more.” He eats one more chip, then closes the bag.

  Alex frequently attempts to systematically refute his parents when he disagrees with something they say. Sometimes, he has the last word:

  Alexander commented, looking out the window at a somewhat poor city neighborhood, that it used to be safer in the old days. His mother made a joke about the dangers of dinosaurs. Alexander, annoyed, said that dinosaurs and humans didn’t live at the same time and pressed the point that it used to be safer. His mother made ambivalent sounds, and so Alex pressed the point more, insisting, “It was too safer in the old days, before they invented guns!” His mother conceded the point.

  Middle-class children employ various tactics when they resist doing what their parents ask of them. Alexander’s way of complying with a request his mother makes after he has finished opening his birthday presents in front of his friends is one example:

  He opens the last present. He goes across the room and stands next to his mother. His mother prompts him, “What do you say?” Alex hollers to everyone in a very loud voice, “Thank you!” A tone of alienation and boredom (as in, “My-mother-is-making-me-do-this”) is slightly detectable in his voice.

  Occasionally, Alexander thwarts his parents by simply absenting himself:

  His mother wraps both arms around his neck and chest and whispers in his ear, “Tell everyone thanks for coming to your birthday party.” She releases him. But even though children and parents are starting to leave, Alexander goes upstairs.

  A [Black] mother whispers in her son’s ear and, with her hand physically resting on his shoulder, she steers him over to Ms. Williams. He says, looking her in the eye, in a flat but serious voice, “Thank you.” The mother, behind him, is saying, “Thank you,” too. Ms. Williams says, “Why, thank you for coming.” She says, “Let me get Alexander.” She goes into the hall and yells up the stairs in a loud voice, “ALEXANDER!” He does not arrive. She yells again, “ALEXANDER! COME SAY GOOD-BYE. PEOPLE ARE LEAVING.” Still no Alexander coming down the stairs. She yells again, “ALEXANDER!” In the meantime, two sets of parents have left.

  The birthday party involved six boys (two Black, one Asian, and three white) and one girl (white) playing video games during the afternoon at an arcade, a pizza dinner, and now cake, ice cream, and presents back at the house. It has run late. Parents have been hanging around waiting for it to be over, and after the last present is opened, it is rapidly coming to a close. In ninety seconds, six of the seven children leave with their parents. Alexander remains upstairs during many of the good-byes. Even so, when his mother yells to him, she is raising her voice only so that her son can hear her, not because she is exasperated or angry. Indeed, although we observed all of the other middle-class parents yell at their children in frustration from time to time, we did not observe similar outbursts in the Williams family. Nor did we ever hear either parent threaten to hit Alex. Rather, they relied exclusively on language as their mechanism of behavioral control.

  In addition, issues that would have been sources of difficulty or discipline in other homes did not cause problems among the Williamses. In working-class and poor homes, for instance, the loss of a library book was treated as a major problem. At the end of the school year, Alexander lost a library book. Late at night (after returning home from a trip to the bookstore), Ms. Williams, the field-worker, and Alexander looked for the missing book. Alexander spent much of the search time turning around in circles and even sometimes jumping on his mother’s back. Ms. Williams, saying, “I guess I’m buying that book,” gave up the search after about five minutes. She did not scold Alexander. Similarly, signs of disrespect for adults that were cause for chastisement in other families often evoked laughter from Alexander’s parents. The Williamses were fully committed to a strategy of concerted cultivation. They seemed delighted with Alexander’s overall development and they were unperturbed when he periodically used the skills they taught him to challenge their authority. For them, the benefits of “developing” Alexander outweighed the costs. Across middle-class families generally, the balance between the advantages and disadvantages of an emphasis on language use can be precarious. In the next section, we look at some of the potential drawbacks.

  COSTS AND BENEFITS

  In a society in which children must attend school, and in which those schools privilege vocabulary, knowledge, and reasoning, middle-class children such as Alexander Williams accrue benefits, even forms of “capital” from the language training they receive in the course of daily life. When Ms. Williams directs her son’s attention t
o a magazine article, for instance, he learns—and then shares—new information.

  On the way to the basketball game, Christina pulled a copy of Time out of the seat pocket. She skimmed through the magazine and ended up on an article that theorized about the extinction of dinosaurs. She exclaimed, “Alexander—look! An article on dinosaurs. You [could] do your report on this.” She passed him the article, and he began to read it. About ten minutes passed and Alex handed the article back. He initiated a conversation about how old the Earth was. He then began to talk about the fact that some dinosaurs are now believed to have been mammals.

  Embedded in this kind of casual information gathering and sharing is an important additional dividend. As part of such exchanges, children discover that their own opinions are valued by others, that their ideas are considered interesting and important. Adults tend to listen with care to children as they share information.

  Middle-class children also receive grammar instruction in out-of-school hours:

  Christina asked him, “What did your teacher say about practice? You know you have not been practicing that much.” Alex: “I know. He told me to practice all of this week. I sounded terrible. Me and Tom had practice together during our homework period.” Christina then corrected Alex as she drove. She was not scolding him, but she was firm: “Tom and I, Alexander.” Alex then repeated what she said, “Tom and I had practice together during our homework period.”

  The ability to marshal evidence to support a position is an important part of the repertoire of skills middle-class parents teach their children. As the son of a lawyer, Alexander is expected, particularly in conversations with his father, to supply evidence for his opinions, even on trivial matters, as during this ride home after church:

  Alex and Terry were deeply engaged in a discussion about which of the X-Men (hulking, green-faced comic book characters) was the most powerful. Terry urged Alex to defend his position as he suggested one X-Man was more powerful than the other. Terry often asked, “What do you mean? What episode did that happen in? Where did you read that at?” The importance of structuring an argument and referring to written material is stressed. Alex [takes out and reads from] his Secrets of the Marvel X-Men book to prove to his Dad that Wolverine’s claws were the only part of his body made of a “titanium alloy.”

  As he reads aloud from the book, Alexander’s parents listen. Like conscientious classroom teachers, they note and comment on an error in pronunciation:

  Christina said, “Go to the beginning and read it over again. I think you mispronounced a word.” Alex reread it and again mispronounced the word. Christina: “That word is pronounced lead [as in leader].” Terry: “That is a trick word. You have to look at the context to see how the word is pronounced.”

  On another occasion, one in which the stakes again are very low, Mr. Williams nevertheless pushes Alex to defend his opinions. Noting an inconsistency in his son’s stated preferences among types of cars, Mr. Williams wants Alex to supply an explanation for the change:

  Terry: “That’s not what you said before. Last time, you said the Miata, the Mercedes, and the Bugatti. Which one is it?”17 Alex (his voice rising): “I didn’t say that. Those three have always been my favorites.” Christina (soothingly): “Don’t worry about it, baby. You can change your mind if you want to. It is your prerogative.” . . . Alex, glancing at his Dad, says jovially, “This is America. It’s my prerogative to change my mind if I want to.”

  The sort of verbal jousting between middle-class children and adults recorded in this field note is not unusual. Alexander and other children of his age and class we observed seem similarly comfortable offering information and advice to adults. For instance, a field-worker reported an incident in which Alex coaxed her to try roller-blading: “If you can ice skate, you can roller-blade,” Alex confidently assured this adult. And, again like other middle-class children, Alex sometimes gives his parents orders, albeit playfully. Mr. Williams recounted one such episode on an evening when he, Ms. Williams, and a field-worker were attending a school performance. After watching a musical in which Alexander sang from beginning to end, Mr. Williams (who dismisses musicals as a “ridiculous” form of entertainment) remarks that it felt as if the seasons had changed while the play was being performed. Laughing, he tells the field-worker that during the previous night’s performance, he had attempted to “sneak out,” but Alexander happened to be in the hallway and redirected him. As the group is leaving the building, Mr. Williams points out the spot near a rear door where his son had caught him.

  Mr. Williams (chuckling): This is where I came out when I was trying to sneak out and Alexander saw me and said (pointing), “Get back in there.”

  Mr. Williams reports that he did indeed return to the auditorium for the remainder of the performance.

  In this instance, Mr. Williams is clearly amused by his son’s actions. Sometimes, however, middle-class parents’ emphasis on language use and reasoning results in behavior that is less acceptable. For example, when parents do not comply with rules but instruct their children to do so, the children openly point out the inconsistency. When Ms. Williams, Alex, and a field-worker are doing errands one afternoon, they walk off the sidewalk onto the dirt as they enter the store from the parking lot. Returning to the car, Alexander argues with his mother when she tries to rein him in:

  Alex jumped over the flowers to get to the car. His mother and I took the steps. Ms. Williams said, “Alex, don’t do that.” He said, “Why not? We walked over the dirt on the way in.” She said, somewhat weakly, “Yes, but you jumped over the flowers. That is different.”

  In addition, concerted cultivation can lead to role confusion, particularly over the amount of power that children have in the family. Within short periods of time, for example, there are radical shifts in the status that Alexander’s parents accord him. At times Alexander is treated similarly to how adults are treated: his opinions are solicited, he is given a “vote” in family decisions, and he even gives his parents orders. In other moments, however, he is treated as if he is a very young child, as in this example while the family is waiting to enter the church service:

  Alexander was leaning on his father. Terry gave Alex a hug. Alex hugged his father tightly. Terry [then] cloaked Alex in his jacket. He made a humming sound as they hugged. Christina [then] asked in . . . a “motherese” tone: “Where’s Alexander?” Christina poked Alex who was still under his father’s jacket. (She asked) “Where’s my baby? Where’s Alexander?” Christina . . . exclaimed, “There he is! I see my baby.” Alexander laughed as his mother poked him. As a prayer became audible through the sanctuary door, Alex was freed from his play of his parents.18

  Alexander clearly enjoys this playful moment. In other instances Alexander as well as other middle-class children resist their parents’ efforts to treat them as children. Instead, drawing on their verbal skills, they assert that they should be accorded special privileges and, when rebuffed, badger their parents to comply with their requests.19

  SUMMING UP

  The verbal world middle-class children inhabit offers formidable advantages and some significant costs. Compared to the children in the working-class and poor homes we observed, Alexander is better prepared to participate effectively in social interactions, particularly those involving adults. The Williamses’ approach to child rearing gives their son a larger vocabulary (e.g., prerogative and plagiarism); it gives him the tools he needs for customizing situations in and outside the home to maximize his own advantage; it exposes him to broader knowledge about topics of interest to him (e.g., dinosaurs and photography chemicals); it helps him learn to defend an argument with evidence (e.g., why his chosen X-Man was the most powerful); and it provides him with a larger set of skills for defending his individual preferences (e.g., eating one more potato chip).

  But concerted cultivation takes time—a great deal of time. Both of Alex’s parents tailored their leisure hours to conform to their son’s various commitments. The Willia
mses also devoted their time and attention to talking with Alex. They taught him new words, scoured magazines for articles that might be of interest to him, elicited his opinions, challenged him to support his assertions, and pointed out inconsistencies in his intellectual positions. For his part, Alex—seemingly willingly—gave up most of his free time in order to participate in adult-organized activities.

  Alexander was an apt pupil, able to absorb all that his parents taught him. The benefits of his social class position were not, however, limited to the impact of his parents’ actions. Alexander himself expanded his opportunities by beginning to implement what he was learning about his position in the social world. Specifically, he seemed to have internalized the idea that it is legitimate and reasonable for others to adjust their actions to suit his preferences; this belief provided the basis for his attempts to customize social interactions, including those involving adults.

  The fact that Alexander is a young African American male also shaped various aspects of his life in important ways. He belonged to an all-Black church, and he had regular opportunities to form friendships with other Black children. His parents carefully scrutinized his social environment, always seeking, as Ms. Williams said, to keep him in the company of individuals who were also “cultured.”

  Although Mr. and Ms. Williams disagreed on elements of how training in race relations should be implemented, they both recognized that their racial and ethnic identity profoundly shaped their and their son’s everyday experiences. They were well aware of the potential for Alexander to be exposed to racial injustice, and they went to great lengths to try to protect their son from racial insults and other forms of discrimination. Nevertheless, race did not appear to shape the dominant cultural logic of child rearing in Alexander’s family or in other families in the study. All of the middle-class families engaged in extensive reasoning with their children, asking questions, probing assertions, and listening to answers.