Themes for Chapters 3, 4, and 5

Upon reading Chapters 3, 4, and 5 from Lareau’s Unequal Childhoods, two main themes occurred to me: child/child interaction and adult/child interaction. Below is a list of notes and reflections I have compiled on each.

Child/child interaction:

Amongst children in the three classes represented in this study (middle, working, and poor), I was surprised to discover that as parents made less money, the bond between siblings, cousins, and neighborhood children grew stronger. Growing up in a foreign country, several thousands of miles from any of my cousins, I was never afforded the luxury of playing often with them. I did, however, relish the time we spent together during our often 6-week family vacations in the summer.

For the remainder of the year, I had my brother, and as children we and our friends played often. However — and this may be because the beginning of my childhood began in the 80s and ended in the 90s — unlike the children reflected in this study, I would argue that my childhood was definitely middle class (with certain privileges that in this country would be synonymous with upper class), and while I did engage in certain activities after school, these were never as extreme as the cases presented, nor did they trump the way in which we valued the sleepovers and day-time activities organized by my friends, my brother and me. Perhaps ironically, reading the case study on the working-class family seemed greatly familiar to me, and the model I would implement for raising children, though borrowing some of the adult-support themes from the middle-class study.

Universally, I also noticed that regardless of class (and this could actually be more a result of class than anything) that in their culturally cultivated activities, children tended to play in homogenous settings; at the same time, natural growth activities also found children playing in homogenous settings.

Adult/child interactions:

I noticed that as families had more money, siblings also tended to become highly competitive with one another; in these cases, it seemed as though children had learned that parental favorites — and thus sibling hierarchy — were dictated by ability. Those with more ability became the center of family life, while the remaining children had to eschew their own lives for the most able of siblings.

Reading of this culture greatly shocked and upset me. To me, children should be treated equally, not favored, nor broken-up in to a caste system based on ability (or birth order). While I agree that their abilities should be nurtured, they ought to be chosen by the child, not dictated by the whims of the adults. It deeply upset me, for example, that Mr. Tallinger did not wish to nurture Spencer’s love of science because he knew nothing of science. To me, that’s one responsibility of a parent: to learn the interests of his children, and to enable them to explore those interests. It’s also, however, the responsibility of the parent to provide balance in a child’s life, so that children have time to be children: to play, to have fun, and to connect with others their own age. The time to be adults need not be rushed into. This balance also seemed to be missing from the lives of the Tallinger’s, even though they had the money to do right what the Taylors and Brindles could not.

Another theme I noticed in the relationship between the adults and their children is the role adults play in children’s lives. I call this either anchor or coach. In the Tallinger study, Mr. Tallinger seems to be more of a coach than a father: he seems to approach his role in their lives as part employer (see when he reasoned with his sons to finish homework or join the swim team) and part cheerleader (when he comes to Garrett’s games and sits with the parents to cheer-on his son; though even here, the cheering is more employer criticism than cheering).

In the Brindle and Taylor studies, however, I found that Ms. Brindle and Taylor were (or attempted to be) anchors in their children’s’ lives. In the case of Ms. Taylor, she went to Teroc’s games to be supportive and because she felt that she should be there to nurture his abilities and interests. At the same time, Ms. Brindle wanted to fly to be with her HIV-positive daughter to be supportive of her (even if it was a tremendous burden to her own life).

This theme continues through parental justice. Mr. Tallinger reasons and argues with his children to accomplish discipline. He is the epitome of a coach in their lives. On the other hand, Ms. Brindle and Taylor have no qualms in beating their children when they misbehave. While beating seems barbaric to me, this action remains true with their role as an anchor — even here, beating allows them to discipline their children.