Stacey describes her first year at University of Maryland (where her four-year scholarship covers tuition, room and board, and books) positively, however. She liked her roommates and enjoyed playing on the basketball team, despite the long hours and arduous workouts. She found her classes challenging, particularly biology, in which she got two C’s (but she brought her GPA [grade point average] up to 2.8 by earning a good grade in a photography course offered in the summer). Her problems with biology have not prompted her to change her long-standing goal of becoming a pediatric surgeon.
Stacey and her high school boyfriend broke up; she has not replaced him. She tells me she has no immediate plans for marriage or kids. She wants to get her career established first. She hopes I will be able to come to one of her college team’s games to see her play basketball.
Garrett Tallinger (white, middle-class) and I meet in his cramped dorm room at Villanova University (a small Catholic school in the northeast). Now 6 feet 5 inches, Garrett towers over me, but the quiet, low-key manner that characterized him as a fourth-grader remains. Villanova awarded Garrett a four-year basketball scholarship that fully covers the annual private-school tuition, room and board, books, and miscellaneous fees.
Soccer and basketball dominated much of Garrett’s childhood. When he was in eighth grade, the Tallingers moved several hundred miles away from the town where he had grown up. Soccer was a relatively underdeveloped sport in the new location. That, plus a series of mishaps and conflicts (including that the soccer playoffs conflicted with other commitments and high school basketball and soccer were offered at the same time, forcing players to choose between the two) led to basketball being the preferred option for him. He made the high school varsity basketball team as a freshman. He recalls that when the coach told him he would be part of the starting line-up for the team’s first game of the season, the news made him feel “the most excited I’ve ever been.”
Garrett continued to excel academically as well. At his parents’ (particularly his mother’s) urging, he took Advanced Placement (English literature, calculus, and economics) and honors-level (physics and history) courses in high school. Garrett graduated with a “weighted” grade point average (i.e., one that balances course grades against course difficulty) of 4.2. His first round of SAT scores, which totaled around 1030–1060 [1550–1590], left him feeling “embarrassed.” “I know that I’m better than that,” he tells me. In the second round he did better with a “mix and match” of 1090 [1640], but he was not able to “crack” 1100 [1670].
In high school, Garrett had dreamed of playing basketball at Stanford or Duke. Although Stanford’s coach did express interest, in the end, he did not make an offer. Garrett could have played basketball at Yale or Brown, but neither provides athletic scholarships, and the tuition alone would have been extremely expensive. The financial burden of attending an Ivy League school, and the drawbacks of playing for a weaker team, led Garrett to choose Villanova. He accumulated significant playing time during his freshman year, and his team advanced quite far in the NCAA “March Madness” tournaments. He also has done well academically (his GPA is 3.3). Garrett’s plans for the future are uncertain. He chose a business major, after briefly considering majoring in math and becoming a teacher. (He says he was dissuaded, in part, by his father’s warnings about dismal earnings prospects “for the rest of your life.”) He hopes to marry and raise a family. He sees that happening fairly far in the future, noting that even twenty-five would be “too early.” When he finishes college, Garrett wants to play basketball for several years, probably in Europe.
Alexander Williams (African American, middle-class) is now a tall, slender young man with a deep baritone voice. We meet at his parents’ house on a sweltering August afternoon. He is at home only by chance. When a health epidemic struck the city where he planned to do a medical internship, he decided to volunteer in the offices of two different local physicians; his mother helped with the arrangements.
Alexander says he has been planning to be a doctor for many years. When he began looking seriously at colleges, he very much wanted to be admitted to a special eight-year combined undergraduate and medical school program offered at Columbia University. He applied to Columbia under an “early decision” provision that would require him to attend the school if he were offered admission. He had earned almost all A’s in high school and, although he felt that he “could have done better” on the SAT, his combined score of 1350 [2030] was strong. This record led his mother to be “pretty sure I would get in,” but his father questioned the wisdom of the early decision strategy. “My Dad was wondering why I hadn’t applied anywhere else,” Alex notes. Fortunately, the single-application gamble paid off. He got into Columbia and its special eight-year program.
When I ask how college has worked out, Alex responds, “I love it.” He reports receiving B’s in nearly all of his courses (Columbia does not offer plus or minus grades). I probe his feelings about these grades and wait while he sits quietly, pondering. Speaking slowly, he says, “I could have done better. But still, I don’t have any regret. I enjoyed myself. I think that I studied a lot. I know I studied a lot.” His father is less content. As Alex puts it, “He knows that I know that I could have done better.”
Reflecting on his freshman year experiences, Alex mentions that the transition to college has been difficult for some of his African American peers: “Some people came from all-Black high schools and they experienced shell shock.” “It wasn’t such a shock [for me]; my high school [was] predominantly white.” He is not active in any of the African American groups on campus, in part because “it can eat up all of your free time.” When I ask whether Alex has been followed around in stores, he grimaces and replies, “Oh yeah, there is nothing you can do about that . . .” In answer to how often he must contend with this problem, he says, “It doesn’t happen that much,” estimating that he is harassed this way a couple of times per month.
Alex drives but does not have his own car. He seems unworried about finances. His parents, whose careers have continued to prosper, give him money, and he also has his own bank account. Alex is anxious to travel and is excited about an upcoming trip to California to visit his girlfriend. He seems content and optimistic about the future.
Youths from Working-Class Families
At twenty, Wendy Driver (white, working-class) is a tall, thin, fresh-faced mother, with an eighteen-month-old daughter, Clara, and a soon-to-be-born son. Wendy’s husband, Ryan, is in the Navy; his submarine job keeps him at sea six months at a time. She became pregnant the fall following her high school graduation, just prior to Ryan’s (already planned) marriage proposal. As a Catholic, Wendy did not consider abortion (“I think abortion is wrong,” she explains). She longed for a big wedding, but she and Ryan “wanted to get married [right away] for the baby.” Her parents helped her arrange two weddings: a small one when she was three months pregnant, and a large, elaborate one when Clara was a year old. Wendy and I meet at her parents’ house, which is about four hours away from her house. When Ryan is gone, she and Clara spend as much time as possible with her parents. Wendy does not drive. She depends on public transportation or relies on her father to facilitate these visits.
Thanks to her grandfather, who paid the $3,000 annual tuition, Wendy attended St. Mary’s, the same all-girl Catholic high school her mother and sisters had attended. This was a great relief to Ms. Driver. She had been extremely concerned about the possibility that Wendy would have to go to the neighborhood high school, Lower Richmond, which has a very poor reputation among the locals. At St. Mary’s, Wendy thrived socially as part of a close-knit group of girlfriends. She worked two jobs (to cover expenses for her cell phone, some clothing, and part of the family’s cable bill) and was involved in athletics. Academically, she continued to struggle. Eventually, she told her friends, “Look, I am retarded. I can’t do this.” The girls pitched in to help her complete projects and other school work. Her teachers accommodated Wendy by giving he
r oral (rather than written) exams. She reports that her high school graduation was seen as a huge accomplishment: “I went up and got my diploma and all of my teachers that I had stood up and started clapping. My principal gave me a hug and started crying.”
Wendy’s mother very much wanted her to go to college, and the high school counselor helped with the application process. Wendy was admitted to a small Catholic college about two hours away, but in the end, she informed her parents that she was “not going.” In recounting that decision, Wendy tells me, tearfully, that she was afraid she would be unable to do college-level work.
Wendy and Ryan are happy together. She describes him as a “nice guy” who is “really shy.” She also mentions that he had a “troubled” past and “used to drink a lot.” They have a traditional marriage. Ryan does not cook or wash dishes. But he is a devoted father who “help[s] . . . with Clara.” Wendy says she enjoys being a stay-at-home mother. She hopes to “take night classes” someday and earn an early childhood education degree. Her goal is to have a home-based day care business.
Tyrec Taylor (African American, working-class) and I meet in the living room of the house his mother bought a few years earlier. Tyrec, who is tall and wears his hair in long, neatly kept cornrows, is wearing an ironed white T-shirt and casual pants. A tattoo on his forearm bears his nickname, “Ty.” His manner is quiet, low-key. Although he visits his mother often, Tyrec lives with his father (and his father’s girlfriend).
Tyrec attended three different high schools. His mother helped him apply to a respected charter school. He was accepted and did well academically. But he missed his friends and longed for an opportunity to play high school basketball. Ms. Taylor permitted Tyrec to transfer to Lower Richmond High in the middle of his sophomore year, a decision she bitterly regrets. “Once I got in school with my friends, I was just running loose,” Tyrec confesses. He passed only three courses (and became ineligible to play basketball). At sixteen, he “got locked up” because, he tells me, “I was running with the wrong people.” The case went to court, but “I didn’t get found guilty or nothing,” Tyrec reports. Upon release from juvenile hall, he moved in with his father.
Ms. Taylor’s efforts to get Tyrec back into a charter school failed. Frantically worried about him returning to Lower Richmond, she persuaded her ex-husband to take out a $6,000 loan, promising that she would repay half of it, to cover Tyrec’s senior year at a private school. There, Tyrec regained a sense of stability, met his (current) girlfriend, and focused more on schoolwork. His parents’ shouldering of substantial debt on his behalf led him to feel, as he puts it, “like I better pass.” He graduated.
Tyrec never took the SAT or ACT, and he seems to have taken few of the high school courses four-year colleges require for admission. He enrolled in the local community college for two semesters, spread over a four-year period. He took four courses (two were required remedial classes) at a cost of $2,500, which he and his father paid for in cash. His mother helped cover the cost of his books.
Tyrec’s work experiences have been erratic. He has worked in fast food restaurants and in a shopping mall; he has been a sales clerk in a drug store and a convenience store. None of these jobs lasted more than a few months. With his cousin’s help, Tyrec recently landed a highly desirable construction job in lead abatement. After a two-week-long training program (which cost $500), he was certified and immediately began working, for $12.00 per hour.
He says he wants to form a business with his cousin, remodeling homes and selling real estate. But he is often preoccupied with simple survival. Two of his good friends have been killed in recent years. When I ask what he plans to be doing five years from now, Tyrec says, “I don’t even know. Tell you the truth, I hope, like right now, I’m not dreaming at nothing like extravagant, I’m just hoping I’ll be ok. It’s crazy out here. I’m hoping I’m still alive . . .”
Billy Yanelli (white, working-class) lives at home with his parents. He and I meet there. Dressed in long baggy shorts and a T-shirt, he looks simultaneously like his grade-school self and strikingly older. He is heavy set, with clear skin and bright eyes. His buzz cut is gelled to stand straight up. The Yanellis have remained in the same house, in the same white, working-class neighborhood. Financially, the family is doing reasonably well. When Billy was in elementary school, his father’s company unionized, and Mr. Yanelli’s wages increased substantially, as did his benefits. Recently, Billy became an apprentice in the same union.
The behavioral problems Billy had in elementary school continued. He recalls “getting suspended for this and that [in middle school]. Talkin’ back to the teachers, stuff like that, just a problem child.” High school brought more of the same. From day one at Lower Richmond High, Billy had not been optimistic. He says he “knew” immediately that he “wasn’t gonna graduate high school.” He tells me about a “little incident” that led to him being suspended: “Me and my buddy were running around the hallway one time, slamming doors. And then, I slammed the door on one of the teachers and [the teacher] got hit.” (Ms. Yanelli strongly believes Billy was wrongly accused of hitting a teacher and thus unfairly suspended.) He dropped out his sophomore year. Later, he enrolled in a $500 test preparation course for the GED, took the exam, and passed. “It got me in the painters’ union,” he says. “That’s all I cared about.”
Although his knowledge of college is vague, Billy maintains, “Everybody that comes out of college right now is gonna be loaded [become rich].” Still, he is not tempted. He says it is “too late” for him, and, “I already got my heart set on a career. I’m trying to hang with this; I can’t hang with college.” Unfortunately, thus far, Billy’s work experiences mirror his school life: behavioral problems undermine his success. He is on probation in his apprentice program. He walked off a job, and he failed a mandatory urine test for drug use (he had smoked marijuana with friends the weekend before the test). These actions make his job precarious. “It’s like, three strikes, you’re out,” he explains.
Billy feels that, overall, he is “doing better than a lot of people.” He has his GED, a job, and “a nice car.” Although he has not had a serious girlfriend, he and a group of friends enjoy “partying” together regularly. He readily admits, “I’m not perfect,” but “I’m a lot more successful than a lot of people in this neighborhood. I’m one of the top five. I can say that.” When I ask him about his plans for the future, he is optimistic. “Hopefully, have a house, a nice car,” he responds, and then, summing up his vision of the future, adds, “Just working and going, still having fun.”
Youths from Poor Families
When Katie Brindle (white, poor) is eighteen, I visit her in the one-bedroom apartment she shares with her new husband, Dave, and her sixteen-month-old daughter, Nirani. Katie is earning $9.00 per hour working as a maid for a major hotel chain; Dave is in construction. They have been married about six months. Katie is dressed in gray sweatpants and sweatshirt. Her long, straight blond hair is pulled up; her bright pink lipstick, black eye make-up, and long, elaborately painted fingernails give her a stylish look. She has several prominent tattoos including one with the name of her daughter. Katie feels she is doing “great.” A year and a half later, we meet again, this time at her older sister Jenna’s house. Katie and Dave have separated (“When I get enough money,” Katie says firmly, “I’m going to divorce him”), and Nirani, now three, is living with Jenna and her family. Katie is cleaning houses (with her mother) and living alternately with her mother and with friends. She seems both hopeful and worn out.
The move that Katie, her mother, and her toddler brother, Melmel, made to Florida when Katie was nine lasted less than a year. The family returned to Lower Richmond, and Katie went to middle school there. She did well academically, but she began experimenting with drugs and started fighting with other students. Still, her middle-school teacher helped her fill out applications for high school, and she was accepted at three high schools: a highly desirable, publicly funded school
about a 20-minute bus ride from home; a nearby vocationally focused high school; and a local comprehensive high school. Her mother narrowed the pool to two (she did not want Katie traveling across town). Katie chose the vocational school but, she explains, she quickly found it oppressive. “I’d start fights with people, I’d rip stuff from the walls,” she recalls. “I didn’t want to be there, so they kicked me out.” The local comprehensive public high school did not work out either. Throughout ninth and tenth grades, she cut classes, drank, “smok[ed] weed,” and got into fights. She also got pregnant the summer after sophomore year.
Being pregnant seemed to stabilize Katie. She reduced her drug use, cut back on “partying,” and made two efforts to return to high school (but ultimately dropped out). Motherhood has proved difficult, though. Katie describes herself as “not a good mother.” “I love [Nirani], but I’m not good with kids.” She thinks Jenna is a very good mother who “has more patience than me. . . . She prays to God and all that.” Katie explains that “Things irk me so bad—like to the point where it’ll make me want to hurt her [Nirani].” She says that an incident in which her anger spun dangerously out of control prompted her to ask Jenna to “take care of [Nirani] for a little bit.” This decision makes Katie feel “horrible,” but she reasons, “growing up with me right now is going to be a lot worse than how she could feel.” Katie’s goals are to earn a GED, get a good job, and have her own apartment: “I want everything to be right before I take [Nirani].”
Unequal Childhoods Page 36
