Unequal Childhoods

by Annette Lareau

  11. I wrote in my field notes, “I am flabbergasted by this.” Still, since the aim of the study was to learn as much as possible about how families interact with institutions, I did not correct her.

  12. Several people in Mr. Fallon’s family believe in hitting. His sister, Sar, for example, told Wendy one afternoon when she picked her up from school and Wendy complained about another child hurting her, “You’ve got to learn to fight!”

  13. We did not observe this visit. Overall, it was very difficult to go along on medical visits, unless the trips were for appointments made well in advance, such as a wellness checkup or a camp physical.

  CHAPTER 11: BEATING WITH A BELT, FEARING THE SCHOOL

  1. He worked “off the books” for many years but recently changed jobs, taking a pay cut, so that he could pay taxes and begin to qualify for Social Security benefits.

  2. A clerk at the emergency room, however, told Ms. Yanelli about a state program providing health insurance for children; as a result Billy has a medical card.

  3. This parent-teacher conference was in the fall, after I had interviewed Ms. Yanelli but before she was asked to be in the observational study. In this conference, Mr. Tier told her very directly that he thought that Billy had psychological problems. (Mr. Tier, not known for his tactfulness, also expressed frustration about Billy rolling down a muddy hill during a field trip, saying in the conference, “Even kids that were fat and stupid got themselves down the hill.”) Ms. Yanelli was very distressed by the conference. Taking my number from the consent form I had given her, she called me at home that evening to discuss it. She thought Billy’s report card was excellent. She was bewildered about why Mr. Tier would not discuss the report card in the conference but make claims of Billy having psychological problems. What is striking in this conversation and many others is that despite Ms. Yanelli’s clear sense that educators are acting inappropriately, she feels incapable of influencing the situation. Furthermore, she blames herself for her powerlessness. As she said that evening, “I think, ‘Why do you let the school do this to you time after time?’ ”

  4. Given the dominant emphasis on reasoning in middle-class settings it is important to point out that reasoning is not without drawbacks. In middle-class families results could be ineffectual, as when parents were trying to reason with a cranky, grumpy, loud five-year-old.

  5. Other research has shown that parents of lower levels of education are likely to use physical discipline, particularly with sons. See Ronald L. Simons et al., “Intergenerational Transmission of Harsh Parenting.”

  6. To our knowledge, no one at Lower Richmond noticed the next day.

  7. See Joyce Epstein’s work as well as James Coleman’s work on this point.

  8. See Jacques Donzelot, The Policing of Families.

  CHAPTER 12: THE POWER AND LIMITS OF SOCIAL CLASS

  1. See Sharon Hays, The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood.

  2. Some researchers claim that happiness is not particularly connected to age, gender, race, or affluence. See David G. Meyers and Ed Diener, “Who Is Happy?”

  3. Middle-class parents were self-aware of how hectic their lives were; they often talked about the lack of time. Some parents also mentioned how their own childhoods had been so different from those of their own children in terms of organized activities. But middle-class parents did not seem to be particularly aware of their emphasis on reasoning and, especially, their interventions in institutions. Nor were they, or working-class and poor parents, particularly aware that radically different approaches to child rearing were being carried out. Instead, parents viewed their approaches to child rearing as natural.

  4. Cornel West, Race Matters.

  5. See Jennifer Hochschild, Facing Up to the American Dream; Ellis Cose, The Rage of a Privileged Class; Beverly Daniel Tatum, Why Are the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?; and Elizabeth Higginbotham, Too Much to Ask.

  6. In this study there were also, in some contexts, differences in sociolinguistic terms (including special words for white people). For a more general discussion of this issue see Mary Patillo-McCoy, Black Picket Fences, and Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton, American Apartheid. I also did not study a racially isolated school. See, among others, Eric A. Hanushek et. al., “New Evidence about Brown v. Board of Education.”

  7. See Ellis Cose, The Rage of a Privileged Class, and Mary Waters, Black Identities.

  8. Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton, American Apartheid.

  9. This study’s findings are compatible with others that have shown children to be aware of race at relatively early ages. Indeed, girls often played in racially segregated groups on the playground. (Boys were likely to be in racially integrated groups.) Thus, this study suggests that racial dynamics certainly exist in children’s lives, but they are not (yet) an organizing feature in the same way that social class membership is. For a piece that stresses the salience of race in the lives of preschoolers, see Debra Van Ausdale and Joe R. Feagin, “Using Racial and Ethnic Concepts.”

  10. A majority of middle-class and working-class parents self-report the use of reasoning in child rearing. Since there is an emphasis in broader cultural repertoires of the importance of using reasoning, it is not surprising that parents of all social classes might report that they use reasoning. Indeed, for many of the working-class and poor parents, physical discipline was a “last resort.” Studies do consistently show that more educated mothers, however, are more likely to stress reasoning. See, among others, Cheryl Blueston and Catherine S. Tamis-LeMonda, “Correlates of Parenting Styles in Predominantly Working- and Middle-Class African American Mothers.”

  11. Of course, some middle-class parents also appeared slightly anxious during parent-teacher meetings. But overall, middle-class parents spoke more, and they asked educators more questions, including more critical and penetrating ones, than did working-class and poor parents.

  12. Working-class and poor children often resisted and tested school rules, but they did not seem to be engaged in the same process of seeking an accommodation by educators to their own individual preferences that I witnessed among middle-class children. Working-class and poor children tended to react to adults’ offers or, at times, plead with educators to repeat previous experiences, such as reading a particular story, watching a movie, or going to the computer room. In these interactions, the boundaries between adults and children were firmer and clearer than those with middle-class children.

  13. Carol Heimer and Lisa Staffen, For the Sake of the Children.

  14. My discussion here is necessarily speculative. Parents of all social classes took for granted key aspects of their child rearing and thus had difficulty articulating the rationale behind their actions.

  15. In the South, children between the ages of ten and thirteen comprised one-third of the workers in textile mills between 1870 and 1900. Viviana Zelizer, Pricing the Priceless Child. See especially chapter 2.

  16. Quoted in Zelizer, Pricing the Priceless Child, p. 78.

  17. Zelizer, Pricing the Priceless Child, p. 67.

  18. Zelizer, Pricing the Priceless Child, p. 59.

  19. Zelizer, Pricing the Priceless Child, p. 97.

  20. See William Corsaro, Sociology of Childhood.

  21. As Randall Collins notes, Max Weber assigns multiple meanings to the term rationalization. Here I am referring to the meaning that “emerges when Weber compares different types of institutions. Bureaucracy is described as a rational form of administrative organization as opposed to the irrational elements found in patrimonialism . . . . The key [conditions] here seem to be predictability and regularity . . . . There is a strong implication that rationality is based on written rules, and hence on paperwork.” Randall Collins, Max Weber: A Skeleton Key, pp. 63, 78.

  22. Ritzer also discusses the importance of efficiency. See George Ritzer, The McDonaldization of Society.

  23. Ritzer, The McDonaldization of Society, p. 3.

  24. Hays, The Cultural Contradictions
of Motherhood, p. 11.

  25. On safety see Mark Warr and Christopher G. Ellison, “Rethinking Social Reactions to Crime,” as well as Joel Best, Threatened Children. On changes in work-family relationships see Rosanna Hertz and Nancy L. Marshall, Working Families, as well as demographic research. On time spent with children, see Suzanne Bianchi, “Maternal Employment and Time with Children.” On suburbanization see Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier.

  26. Hays, Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood.

  27. In 2002, enrolling a child in a single sport could cost as much as $5000 per year. The estimates for ice hockey include $100 skates (which usually need to be replaced twice a year), $60 gloves, and annual league fees of up to $2,700. David M. Halbfinger, “Our Town: A Hockey Parent’s Life.”

  28. See the classic article by Urie Bronfenbrenner on this point, “Socialization and Social Class through Time and Space.”

  29. See the extensive writings by Melvin Kohn on this point, especially his book (with Carmi Schooler) Work and Personality.

  30. Middle-class families did not live problem-free lives. The point here is that middle-class families have more varied occupational experiences; their superior educational training also gives them access to jobs with more economic returns.

  31. Katherine Newman, Declining Fortunes, and Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, America: What Went Wrong?

  32. Erik Olin Wright, Class, Crisis, and the State, chapter 1.

  33. Not all middle-class parents we interviewed approved of this scenario, either. Many thought it was wrong to force a child to take piano lessons that he did not enjoy. Still, unlike working-class and poor parents, many stressed the importance of “exposure.”

  34. Michael Katz, The Price of Citizenship.

  35. See Lawrence Mishel et al., The State of Working America, p. 289.

  36. David Karen, letter to author, 7 June 2002. See Jody Heymann, The Widening Gap.

  37. Alvin Rosenfeld and Nicole Wise, The Over-Scheduled Child, pp. 1–2.

  38. Rosenfeld and Wise, The Over-Scheduled Child, pp. 1–2.

  39. See Maria Newman, “Time Out! (for Overextended Families): A Town Takes a Rare Break from the Frenzy of Hyperscheduling.”

  40. For example: “Like wild animals raised in captivity who never develop their inborn potential to hunt for themselves, children who are robbed of the opportunity to come up with their own games and entertain themselves at those times in their lives when these capacities are developing may very well become dependent upon others to determine their good times.” Dana Chidekel, Parents in Charge, pp. 94–95.

  41. See work by Doris Entwistle and Karl Alexander on this topic, including Entwistle, Alexander, and Olsen, Children, Schools, and Inequality.

  42. For details of one program, see a series of articles by Dale Mezzacappa in the Philadelphia Inquirer, including “Ten Years of Learning, Living, Loving.” Overall, the program was most successful for students in the regular educational track (as opposed to those in special education) and for young men rather than women.

  43. For example, in the Chicago-based “I Had a Dream” program, 72% of the cohort graduated from high school, compared to 35% of the control group. For Paterson, New Jersey, 60% of the 1993 cohort graduated compared to 33% of the control group. These interventions begin in third grade (as opposed to sixth in the Say Yes program). See the “I Had a Dream Foundation” Web site for a summary of in-house statistics as well as research evaluations conducted by independent researchers, www.ihad.org (accessed 12 December 2002).

  44. Among others, see Hugh Mehan et al., Constructing School Success, and an evaluation by Public/Private Ventures of the Big Brother/Big Sister Program, Joseph Tierney et al., “Making a Difference.”

  45. As Barrie Thorne has noted in Gender Play, the significance of gender varied across context. As she suggests, we observed children self-segregating into gender homogenous groups, as when Harold McAllister, Tyrec Taylor, Wendy Driver, and Jessica Irwin separated into informal, gendered groups in their neighborhoods. But if there was a scarcity of near-age children, then boys, such as Billy Yanelli and Garrett Tallinger, would play with girls; Katie Brindle would play with both boys and girls. In addition, children, particularly Karl Greeley, spent a great deal of time playing with their younger siblings. For an overview of the research on gender role socialization in childhood, see Eleanor Maccoby, The Two Sexes.

  46. See David Halle’s book, America’s Working Man.

  47. Michael B. Katz, The Undeserving Poor.

  PART IV: UNEQUAL CHILDHOODS, UNEQUAL ADULTHOODS

  1. A new table, C10, has been added to Appendix C, presenting in summary form information about the twelve families at the time of the original study that I feel will be useful to readers, and a new Appendix D contains summary information on the twelve young adults and their families at the time of the follow-up.

  CHAPTER 13: CLASS DIFFERENCES

  Portions of this chapter were originally drafted as part of a paper with Amanda Cox, “Social Class and the Transition to Adulthood,” in Changing Families in an Unequal Society, and of a paper with Elliot Weininger, “Concerted Cultivation Continues,” in Social Class: How Does It Work? I am grateful to both Amanda Cox and Elliot Weininger for their assistance with these sections.

  1. For a highly readable account of job loss, see Donald L. Barlett and James Steele, America: What Went Wrong? In The Sociological Imagination, C. Wright Mills wrote about the intersection of social structure, history, and biography. The many powerful historical shifts that have influenced the lives of the families in the study are beyond the scope of this essay. However, the contemporary focus on globalization sometimes obscures the important impact other changes have had on everyday family life in the United States. For example, in 1959 35% of the elderly were poor, but many factors, particularly the introduction of Social Security and Medicare, have reduced this figure to only 9% in 2009. Children have not fared as well. Census data show that in 2009 20.7% of all children under 18 were poor (but 12% of white children and 37% of black children). Economic Policy Institute, The State of Working America, “Poverty Higher for Children,” www.stateofworkingamerica.org/charts/view/27 (accessed March 30, 2011); and “Poverty Rates Higher Among Younger Children,” www.stateofworkingamerica.org/charts/view/180 (accessed March 30, 2011). For the debate about absolute versus relative measures of poverty, as well as a valid standard for measuring poverty, see John Iceland, Poverty in America. Poverty remains linked to many detrimental outcomes, particularly for children. See Greg Duncan and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Consequences of Growing Up Poor.

  2. Prior to 1973, many families were able to live relatively comfortably on one income. In the decades after, however, wages for high school graduates and dropouts deteriorated considerably. After 1970, women, particularly married women with children, entered the labor force in large numbers. This period also saw a delay in the age of marriage, a drop in the likelihood of marriage, an increase in the number of babies born to parents who were not married, and an increase in poverty rates for children. See, among others, Andrew J. Cherlin, The Marriage-Go-Round; Frank Furstenberg Jr., “The Recent Transformation of the American Family.” Through much of this period, inequality increased. See George Irvin, The Super Rich; Economic Policy Institute, The State of Working America.

  3. For discussion of this point, see Arne Kalleberg, Barbara Reskin, and Ken Hudson, “Bad Jobs in America.”

  4. The U.S. Census Bureau gives the following figures for 2009 for the median earnings by level of educational attainment and gender, for full-time workers of all races, ages 25 to 34 years old:

  In order to embed the experiences of the young people in this study in a broad national context, unless otherwise noted, I have selected statistics that correspond to their life course. Generally, the young people in the original study were born in 1984. Thus, data for high school graduation are from 2002, college graduation figures are from 2006, and so forth. When figures are not available for th
e requisite years, I provide the most recent data available.

  5. U. S. Census Bureau, “Educational Attainment.” A GED is a General Educational Development certificate, awarded on taking a series of tests that indicate the equivalent of a high school education. For the impact of the GED on earnings, see John H. Tyler, “The Economic Benefits of a GED.” By almost all income-gap measures, including annual wages, weeks of unemployment, likelihood of receiving governmental aid, size of pensions, and weeks of vacation, individuals with college degrees fare better than those with lower levels of education. See Economic Policy Institute, The State of Working America.

  6. Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis made this point in their book Schooling in Capitalist America. There is some debate, however, over the degree to which job skills in the new economy are responsible for the increasing pressure for more education. Some see a connection between educational training and work productivity. Others see the relationship as highly variable and often weak. For the classic piece, see Randall Collins, The Credential Society. Also, higher education is increasingly differentiated. The majority of students begin at community colleges or state schools, but relatively few community college students complete a B.A. See James E. Rosenbaum, Regina Deil-Amen, and Ann E. Person, After Admission. Less than one-fifth of the college-going population is enrolled in highly selective colleges, but the admissions process for this group is highly competitive among both students and colleges. See Mitchell L. Stevens, Creating a Class; Lloyd Thacker, ed., College Unranked.