Unequal Childhoods

by Annette Lareau

  Throughout all their daily negotiations, Ms. Williams is alert for teachable moments. For example, as I show below, although distracted, she still manages to squeeze in a short math lesson while looking for her husband’s car. As a result, Alexander is learning to be adept with language. This ability to use language instrumentally, that is, to use vocabulary along with reasoning and negotiating skills to achieve specific ends, is an important class-based advantage. Middle-class children, including Alexander, practice their nascent language skills to “customize” certain situations, and in so doing receive benefits.

  DEVELOPING ALEXANDER

  Daily life in the Williams family owes much of its pace and rhythm to Alexander’s schedule. Neither Alexander nor his parents consider his involvement in many different activities to be a problem. Mr. and Ms. Williams see their son’s activities as a means of fostering his talents and skills. Alexander sees them as opportunities for fun and as ways to stave off boredom. He requests to be enrolled in certain activities and he initiates having friends come to the house to visit. Despite their number and variety, Alexander’s commitments do not consume all of his free time. Still, as this section makes clear, his life is defined by a series of deadlines and schedules interwoven with a series of activities organized and controlled by adults, rather than by children.

  Organization of Daily Life

  Alexander has many activities, both during the week and on weekends. Saturday morning, for example, starts early, with Alexander’s private piano lesson, a twenty-minute drive from the house.

  [It’s an] eight-fifteen class. But for me, it was a trade off. I am very adamant about Saturday morning TV. I don’t know what it contributes. So . . . in my mind, it was . . . um . . . either stay at home and fight on a Saturday morning (laughs) or go do something constructive . . . Eight-fifteen gave us a way to get our day started and get some things done . . . Now Saturday mornings are pretty booked up. You know, the piano lesson, and then straight to choir for a couple of hours. So, he has a very full schedule.

  Ms. Williams’s vehement opposition to television is based on her view of what Alexander needs to grow and thrive. She objects to the passivity of television and to the fact that “most of the programs that come on Saturday morning really don’t contribute anything to your intellect.” She feels it is her obligation to help get her son out of the house to cultivate his talents.

  Sometimes Alexander complains that “my mother signs me up for everything!” Generally, however, he likes his activities. He says that they make him feel “special” and that without them, life would be “boring.” His sense of time is so thoroughly entwined with his activities that he feels disoriented when his schedule is not full. This sense of unease is clear in the following excerpt from a field note taken as the family is returning home from a back-to-school night. The following day Ms. Williams has to take a work-related day trip (a two-hour train ride each way) and will not be home until late at night. Alexander is grumpy because he does not have anything planned for the next day. He wants to have a friend over, but his mother rebuffs him. Whining, he wonders out loud what he will do. His mother, speaking tersely, says:

  “You have piano and guitar. You’ll have some free time. (pause) I think you’ll survive for one night.” Alexander does not respond but seems mad. It is quiet for the rest of the trip home.

  Both of Alexander’s parents believe his activities are important for his development. They view the benefits as wide ranging. In discussing Alexander’s piano lessons, Mr. Williams notes that as a result of learning through the Suzuki method,5 Alexander is already able to read music. He sees music training as beneficial:

  I don’t know baroque from classical—but he does. How can that not be a benefit in later life? I’m convinced that this rich experience will make him a better person, a better citizen, a better husband, a better father—certainly a better student.

  Ms. Williams sees music as building her son’s “confidence” and his “poise.” In interviews and in conversation, she often stresses the notion of “exposure,” making it clear that she sees it as her responsibility to broaden Alexander’s worldview, like Louise and Don Tallinger seek to broaden Garrett’s worldview. Ms. Williams considers childhood activities a learning ground for important life skills:

  Sports provide great opportunities to learn how to be competitive. Learn how to accept defeat. Learn how to accept winning, in a gracious way. Also it gives him the opportunity to learn leadership skills and how to be a team player. Those . . . sports really provide a lot of really great opportunities.

  Alexander’s activities change regularly; as new seasons commence, some activities wind down and others start up. Since the schedules of sports practices and games are issued no sooner than the start of the new season, advance planning is rarely possible. The sheer number of activities means that inevitably some events will overlap. Some activities, though short-lived, are extremely time consuming. Alexander’s school play, for example, requires attendance at three nights of rehearsals the week before the opening. Finally, time constraints also sometimes require that Alexander opt out of activities because his parents cannot adjust their work schedules sufficiently. For instance, Mr. Williams explained that Alex was a good enough soccer player to qualify for the traveling team, but they could not let him sign up because Mr. Williams could not leave work early enough to get Alexander to the out-of-town games.

  Participation in organized sports provides middle-class children with more than an outlet for their energy or an opportunity to develop physical skills. Many of the soccer teams in the area where Alex lives, although comprised of third- and fourth-graders, are ability ranked. There are “A” teams, “B” teams, and all-star teams. Children’s athletic skills are routinely and publicly assessed on two levels—their performance during any given game, and their presence on a particular team. Like other middle-class children in the study, Alexander does not seem uncomfortable with the idea of public performance—whether it be playing soccer or playing Mozart. In fact, he seems to enjoy performing. According to a field note, after his solo at a musical production in front of more than two hundred people, he appeared “contained, pleased, aware of the attention he’s receiving.”

  Social Connections

  Both Mr. and Ms. Williams consider themselves to be very connected to their extended families. Ms. Williams is the daughter of a minister and a homemaker. She grew up in a medium-sized city in the South. All eight children in the family graduated from college. Ms. Williams says she feels close to her family, even though she lives far from them. She talks on the phone daily with her mother and visits her parents three to four times per year. On two of those visits, she takes Alexander with her to see his grandparents. Mr. Williams is the eldest of nine children; he grew up in a small town in the South. His mother, who worked as a domestic and later as a cook, is retired. His father and his stepfather (neither of whom is still living) had grammar school education and worked as laborers. Mr. Williams talks on the phone with his mother once a week and sees her twice a year. He sends her about $500 per month, and he also helps pay for the college education of one of his nieces.

  Because Alexander has no cousins for hundreds of miles, interactions with cousins are not a normal part of his leisure time. Nor does he often play with children from his neighborhood. The occupants of the huge homes on his street are mainly couples without children. Most of Alexander’s playmates are drawn from his classroom or from the organized leisure activities in which he participates. Since the great majority of his school activities, church life, soccer games, choir, piano, baseball games, and other commitments are organized by the age (and sometimes gender) of the participants, Alexander tends to interact almost exclusively with children his own age, usually boys.

  Impact on Family Life

  Alex’s many activities keep his already-busy parents even busier. His mother typically moves through these demands in a gracious and sociable fashion. Mr. Williams, on the other hand, s
ometimes complains about the time consumed by his son’s events. He usually brings a newspaper to read while he waits for a school performance to begin, reads in the backseat of the car (with Alexander in the front seat) on the way to events, and sometimes sorts his work mail during soccer practice. This divergence between the spouses, with mothers seeming more invested in children’s activities than fathers, is typical of all of the parents we observed. Mothers are also generally more active than fathers in ancillary events such as the “parents group” for Alexander’s church youth choir group, which draws only mothers.

  Mr. Williams’s long hours at work frequently leave him tired on the weekends. Rushing from scheduled event to scheduled event seems to weary him. One Sunday, as the family is hurrying from church to baseball to a school play, he reflects on the irony of all this coming and going on what is supposed to be a day off: “Leisurely Sunday afternoon schedule, huh?”

  Besides sometimes being exhausting, Alexander’s activities also create tension between his parents over the division of labor in the family. Each commented on this in separate interviews. Mr. Williams feels that he shares equally (a fifty–fifty split) in labor related to caring for Alexander. His wife reports sixty–forty for physical labor and eighty-five–fifteen for mental labor. Mr. Williams does not believe Alexander’s activities have had any consequences for his wife’s career. She disagrees. Ms. Williams says she consciously chose to make her son her “priority.” Although adamant about the rewards she reaps from this decision, she reports, reluctantly, that her choice has required her to “make sacrifices” in her career. In addition, Mr. and Ms. Williams disagree, at times, about how much the family social space should be dominated by Alexander’s preferences. For example, one July afternoon, the family sets out on a round of errands. They need to get Alexander’s hair cut, put gas in the car, go to the grocery store for weekly shopping, and pick up Chinese food for dinner. Alexander has a tape (entitled “Trout Fishing in America”) with songs he enjoys. In one, “Boiled Okra and Spinach,” the singer reports he’d rather eat “boogers.” Alex sings along with the tape; Alex, his mother, and the field-worker all laugh as they listen to the lyrics. Mr. Williams does not join in the laughter, although at one point he does contribute to a discussion about the name of a song. Later, when he states clearly that he is tired of the tape and wants it turned off, his wife resists, advising him that it “grows on you.” He retreats into reading and says nothing more.

  Mr. and Ms. Williams also disagree periodically about Alexander’s schedule. In his exit interview, Mr. Williams expressed discomfort with the fact that Alexander belonged to two choirs. He seemed to be concerned that being in two choirs might compromise his son’s developing masculinity. Eventually, Alexander did drop out of one choir (and immediately enrolled in Friday night basketball). In general, Mr. Williams seems more tired and worn down than Ms. Williams. Compared to his wife, he seems to draw less pleasure from all aspects of Alexander’s events. Still, both are enthusiastic about their son’s exposure to a wide array of activities. Mr. and Ms. Williams are aware that they allocate a sizable portion of time to Alexander’s activities. What they stress, however, is the time they hold back. They comment on the activities the family has chosen not to take on (such as traveling soccer). Indeed, Alexander’s activities do involve fewer travel demands than those of other middle-class children in the study. Garrett Tallinger, for instance, routinely was driven ninety minutes (in each direction) for soccer games.

  TALK, TALK, TALK: THE IMPORTANCE OF LANGUAGE USE

  IN MIDDLE-CLASS FAMILIES

  As a family, the Williamses freely share laughter, language, and affection. Although we heard the parents speak sharply to Alexander, we never heard them yell at him nor saw them use physical punishment. Instead, we observed them repeatedly, systematically, and determinedly use verbal negotiation to guide Alex through the challenges in his life. As Basil Bernstein has noted, rather than using authority based on position (e.g., that of being a parent) middle-class parents prefer negotiating interactions with their children in a more personalistic fashion.6 They use reasoning to bring about a desired action, and they often explain why they are asking children to do something.

  More generally, the Williamses often appear to be engaged in conversations with Alexander that promote his reasoning and negotiating skills. An excerpt from field notes (describing a conversation between Alexander and his mother during a car ride home after summer camp) captures the kind of pointed questions Ms. Williams frequently asks her son.

  As she drives, she asks Alex, “So, how was your day?” Alex: “Okay. We had hot dogs today, but they were burned! They were all black!” Christina: “Oh, great. You shouldn’t have eaten any.” Alex: “They weren’t all black, only half were. The rest were regular.” Christina: “Oh, okay. What was that game you were playing this morning? Alex: “It was [called] ‘Whatcha doin?’” Christina: “How do you play?”

  In this exchange, Ms. Williams is doing more than eliciting information from Alex. She is also giving him the opportunity to develop and practice verbal skills, including how to summarize, highlight important details, clarify, and amplify information.

  Such expressions of interest in children’s activities often lead to negotiations over small, home-based matters. For instance, during the same car ride, Alexander’s mother tries to adjust the family dinner menu to suit her son’s preferences. Not all middle-class mothers are as attentive to their children’s needs as Ms. Williams is, and no mother is always interested in negotiating. But a general pattern of reasoning and accommodating is common. Similarly, although children in working-class and poor homes rarely volunteer food preferences or seek to determine what the entire family will eat for dinner, middle-class children do so frequently.

  Sometimes, a form of democratic parenting seems to dominate the Williamses’ home. For example, Mr. Williams was “outvoted,” two to one, regarding the family’s participation in the study. On another occasion, Mr. Williams suggests they take a vote regarding the most efficient route through a traffic jam. But, especially in matters of health and safety, Mr. and Ms. Williams tend to substitute directives in place of discussion or reasoning. On these occasions, they tell Alex what kind of action they expect him to take, as this field note illustrates:

  Christina served Alex and put salad on everyone’s plate. She and Alex debated over the green beans. Alex: “Mom, I do not want any of those. They are nasty!” Christina, in a sharp and annoyed tone: “I am not going to give you much, Alexander, but you are going to eat them.” Terry was fixing his own plate. He did not look at them. Alex replied in a whiny voice, “Well, just give me four. They are nasty.” Christina did not reply. She placed six string beans on his plate.

  For Mr. Williams, actions related to playing sports competently seem to carry the same weight as health and safety. Thus, at a winter basketball game, he shouts to Alexander repeatedly:

  “Alexander stick to your man.” “Put your hands up, Alex!” “Shoot the ball! Just don’t stand there!” “Alex, get open!” Alexander is a mediocre ball player. He looked at his father as he yelled/talked at him. He appeared to become more nervous and uncoordinated. Alex scored four points and blocked two shots. The final score was 34–8.7

  While driving another boy home after the game, Mr. Williams delivers a lecture:

  He periodically glanced in the rearview mirror as he spoke. “Denny, you and Alexander have to start taking more shots. I don’t know how many times that you guys got the ball down to the basket, just to give the ball away. It was as if all of you were scared to shoot.”

  Alex jumps into the conversation and attempts to assert his own view. His father is dismissive:

  Alex interrupted boastfully, “I made two baskets.” Terry replied, “And you could have had a lot more if you would have shot the ball every time that you were open.” Alex looked disappointed. He sat all the way back in his seat. Terry continued, “Back in my day, we had the opposite problem: All of t
he guys wanted to be the superstars and you could not stop them from shooting the ball. You guys are scared to shoot the ball.”

  In marked contrast to working-class and poor parents, however, even when the Williamses issue directives, they often include explanations for their orders. Here, Ms. Williams is reminding her son to pay attention to his teacher:

  I want you to play close attention to Mrs. Scott when you are developing your film. Those chemicals are very dangerous. Don’t play around in the classroom. You could get that stuff in someone’s eye. And if you swallow it, you could die.

  Alex chooses to ignore the directive in favor of instructing his misinformed mother:

  Alex corrects her, “Mrs. Scott told us that we wouldn’t die if we swallowed it. But we would get very sick and would have to get our stomach pumped.” Christina does not follow the argument any further. She simply reiterates that he should be careful.