This kind of training developed in Alexander and other middle-class children a sense of entitlement. They felt they had a right to weigh in with an opinion, to make special requests, to pass judgment on others, and to offer advice to adults. They expected to receive attention and to be taken very seriously. It is important to recognize that these advantages and entitlements are historically specific. In colonial America, for example, children’s actions were highly restricted; thus, the strategies associated with concerted cultivation would have conferred no social class advantage. They are highly effective strategies in the United States today precisely because our society places a premium on assertive, individualized actions executed by persons who command skills in reasoning and negotiation.
CHAPTER 7
Language as a Conduit
for Social Life:
Harold McAllister
I ask Harold, “How is your [fifth-grade] teacher?” Harold hotly says, “She’s mean and she lies.” Ms. McAllister is washing dishes, listening quietly. She asks, “What was the name of that man teacher?” Harold says, “Mr. Lindsay?” She says, “No, the other one.” He says, “Mr. Terrene.” Ms. McAllister smiles and says, “Yeah, I liked him.”
Off a busy street, a few blocks from a small business area, lies the Lower Richmond public housing project. Since the road to the housing project dead-ends, and most who live or visit there do not own cars, there is little traffic. Few people wander accidentally through. All the residents are African American, and so is much of the surrounding area (the project edges a large swath of the city that consists exclusively of Black neighborhoods). A white working-class neighborhood is within walking distance, however. The housing project is considered a dangerous area; local businesses, including the pizza parlor, refuse to make deliveries there.
The McAllister family lives in a part of the project consisting of rows of two- and three-story brick units. The brown, blocklike units on their side contain five two-story apartments. Because the apartments have only one small window per room, they are dark on the inside. Sometimes residents keep lights on during the day. Outside, each has its own small yard enclosed by a concrete-and-wood fence. A large deciduous tree stands in front of the McAllisters’ unit; its leaves provide welcome shade during the hot summer. Wide concrete sidewalks cut through the spaces between the buildings; at night large floodlights shine down from the corners of each unit. The ground is bare in many places and often is littered with paper, wrappers, and glass.
Residents often sit together outside in lawn chairs or on front stoops, drinking beer, talking, and watching children play. Windows are left open usually during summer, allowing breezes to waft through the units and providing vantage points from which residents can survey the neighborhood.
The first floor of the McAllisters’ two-story apartment contains an open living area and a kitchen. The living room is simply furnished, with two turquoise couches, one easy chair, and a wooden stand with a large, open Bible on top. There is a table in the kitchen and, not far from that, a washing machine (there is no dryer). Roaches are a constant problem, despite efforts to beat them back with pesticides. Thus, food is not usually left out. The refrigerator is broken. Ms. McAllister has complained to the manager and although she has been promised a new one, it doesn’t arrive during the three weeks we are visiting. Ms. McAllister makes do by storing some food next door in her friend Latifa’s refrigerator and some in coolers packed with ice.
Upstairs, there are four bedrooms. Two can hold a double bed, and two a single bed. There is a bed and a dresser in each room; the closets, to save money when they were built, do not have doors. The walls are bare. One bedroom has a window air conditioner in the window; the apartment is quite warm on hot summer days. There is one bathroom. Three televisions are in the house, including one in Ms. McAllister’s bedroom. Most of the time at least one set is on. Unlike Alexander Williams’ mother, Ms. McAllister does not restrict television watching. Indeed, she finds television useful. As she says, “It will be on all night long because I keep my TV on all night long. That’s how I go to sleep.” Although the McAllisters once had a phone, for much of Harold’s fourth-grade year they haven’t had one due to budget constraints. Ms. McAllister receives messages from the school at her sister Lavina’s house, and her neighbor Latifa also takes messages.
THE FAMILY
The McAllister household is headed by Ms. Jane McAllister, a tall, lively thirty-three-year-old woman with a highly developed sense of humor and a booming voice. During our visits, she usually was clad in cutoffs and a T-shirt dating from her days as a high school athlete. She receives public assistance but hopes to work again. Ms. McAllister has four children. Harold (age ten) and his sister Alexis (nine) live with her full time. Their older brother, Lenny (seventeen), and sister Lori (sixteen) live primarily with Ms. McAllister’s mother, who lives a few minutes away by bus. Lenny and Lori come by the McAllister apartment regularly during the week and often stay overnight, especially on weekends.
Ms. McAllister is a devoted aunt. She provides a home for her nephews, Runako (eleven) and Guion (nine). The boys’ mother, Ms. McAllister’s sister, Dara, recently lost her home and is now staying in the housing project with her friend Charmaine. Knowing that the boys do not like their mother’s friend and do not feel welcome in her apartment, Ms. McAllister has invited her nephews to stay with her. They often come four or more days per week, eating meals, taking showers, and sharing a bed with Harold. Their presence puts a strain on the already tight food budget.
Another guest is Ms. McAllister’s twin sister, Jill, a cocaine addict. She does not have a key, but occasionally enters the apartment by slipping in through a window. She sleeps on the couch. Jill has two daughters, Halima (three), and Monique (ten months). The previous year, when Harold was in third grade, Jill and her children lived with the McAllisters. Subsequently, Jill was accused of child neglect and the girls were removed from her care. Jane and Jill’s sister Lavina (who lives in a small apartment about fifteen minutes away by bus) took in Halima and Monique. Lavina has a serious medical disability, but, with help from her live-in boyfriend, she is able to manage caring for Jill’s children. Ms. McAllister regularly visits her sister Lavina and her nieces. Jill, however, is able to see the children only under supervision and she does not visit them often (she missed Halima’s third birthday party, for example).
In addition to Ms. McAllister, the children, and Jill, the McAllister household includes Keith, Ms. McAllister’s common-law husband. Keith is a long-distance truck driver who is often gone for days at a time. He returns home between trips. He plays basketball with the children, especially Harold, but he does not assume the role of a parent. Finally, there is Hank, Harold and Alexis’s father. Hank visits regularly even though he and Harold’s mother are no longer romantically involved (they never married). At fifty-seven, he is much older than Ms. McAllister (he has daughters older than she is). Hank is a mechanic. He drops by the apartment after work, lies down, and goes to sleep. Ms. McAllister laughingly explains: “Hank will lie on the bed. I’ll be coming and going, and he’ll be laying down.”
Some weekends Harold takes the bus across town to visit Hank in the house he shares with his mother and two brothers. These overnight stays usually are not formally planned in advance; Harold “just shows up.”1Alexis does not accompany Harold on these trips. Sometimes, though, Hank’s daughters (Alexis’s half-sisters) come over and take her out. Hank contributes to the household periodically, for example, by buying pizza on Friday nights. He sometimes gives Ms. McAllister money for the children, especially for clothing. He expresses pride in his son’s accomplishments and attends key events in Harold’s life (e.g., fifth-grade graduation). He does not usually manage Harold’s day-to-day care or discipline him.
Table 3 lists the individuals who live in and/or regularly visit the McAllister apartment. Usually, there are five to seven people staying overnight in the house and, when both Jill and Keith are there, as many as n
ine.2 The children sleep in different beds on different nights. Sometimes they ask for help finding room:
RUNAKO: Hey, Jane. I can’t get in. Harold’s spread across the bed.
JANE: Move Harold’s butt over. He’s sleeping on the short way. Just push him over some.
Unlike in middle-class homes, there is not a clear sense of private space in the McAllister’s apartment.
The family lives under formidable economic constraints. Ms. McAllister receives Aid to Families with Dependent Children for Harold and Alexis, and she has a medical card for doctor visits.3 Although she uses food stamps, food is often in short supply. The children always ask permission before they eat something; we never observed them helping themselves to food. When put out, food usually disappears rapidly, as there are many mouths to feed. For example, one afternoon, an entire large box of saltine crackers and some jam is devoured in thirty minutes as Harold and Alexis, Runako and Guion, a neighbor’s three-year-old grandson, myself, and Ms. McAllister snack and talk.
On special occasions food may be plentiful. At a birthday party for Jill’s daughter Halima, hot dogs, buns, mustard, Kool-Aid, and Cheese-Its were in abundance. More often, however, there is not quite enough to go around. One Friday night, for instance, the two pizzas in the oven must be divided among Ms. McAllister, Harold, Alexis, Lori, Hank, and Jill. When Harold asks for a second piece of pizza, he is redirected to drink soda. Another night, each child has one meatball, canned yams, and canned spinach for dinner. There is not enough for second helpings.
TABLE 3. OVERVIEW OF MCALLISTER FAMILY
Money is in equally short supply. The family forgoes some things—like dental care, stylish clothing, and hair treatments—and shares others, like transportation costs.4 Ms. McAllister’s sister Dara loans her bus pass to the family for outings and sometimes friends supply car rides. Among the children, the desire for money, and the access it brings to material objects, is palpable. They clamor for money one morning when Lenny comes by and holds out some dollar bills before their eyes. Their longing is clear, too, when they make wishes. In response to, “What would you do if you had a million dollars?” Alexis said:
Oh, boy! I’d buy my brother, my sister, my uncle, my aunt, my nieces, and my nephews, and my grandpop, and my grandmom, and my mom, and my dad, and my friends, not my friends, but mostly my best friend—I’d buy them all clothes . . . and sneakers. . . . And I’d buy some food, and I’d buy my mom some food, and I’d get my brothers and my sisters gifts for their birthdays.
Harold and Alexis, however, do not press their mother or father to buy them things:
We stop outside [a clothing store] and Hank carefully [looks] at clothes and at the prices . . . Harold looks too . . . Harold seems withdrawn, almost wary. He leaves it up to his father to take the lead. The entire time of the trip, I never heard him say, “Can I have xx” or “Can I have yy?” We went past candy, videotapes, books, magazines, sports shirts, sports bags, and he never spoke up.
As this field note suggests, Harold’s restraint was disconcerting after so many observations of working-class and middle-class children who routinely ask their parents to purchase items for them.
But Harold does not live a life of total deprivation. Ms. McAllister is committed to meeting her children’s basic needs, and, whenever possible, supplying them with “extras.” For example, the field-workers noted occasions when she gave the children money to buy a soda or a bag of chips at a store near the housing project. Ms. McAllister sees herself as a very capable mother. Like Alexander Williams’s mother, she wants her children to be successful and happy. She strives to provide a strong, positive influence in their lives (unlike the drug-addicted mothers in the project), but she views her role as a parent very differently from the way Ms. Williams views hers. In the McAllister family, as in other poor and working-class families, a parent’s key responsibility lies in providing important physical care for children, offering clothing and shelter, teaching the difference between right and wrong, and providing comfort. In all of this, language plays an important, practical role. Unlike Ms. Williams, Ms. McAllister does not continuously attempt to enrich Harold’s vocabulary, cultivate his verbal (or physical) talents, cajole him, or attempt to persuade him to act in particular ways. When Harold complains, as in the opening of the chapter, that his teacher “lies,” his mother listens quietly and reminds him of a teacher she did like, but unlike Ms. Williams she does not have her son elaborate. Ms. McAllister often issues short, clear directives and she expects prompt, respectful compliance. Harold rarely challenges any directive issued by an adult, nor does he try to reason or negotiate with either of his parents. The strong, clear boundaries Ms. McAllister draws between adults and children do not, however, lead her to tightly control Harold’s activities. He and the other children are free to play, watch TV, and spend time with their nearby friends without specifically consulting her. In contrast to middle-class children’s worlds, where children’s activities often supplant kinship time, extended family networks play a very important role among the McAllisters.
These differences in parenting, especially language use, affect the children’s lives both outside and inside the home. The emerging sense of entitlement that is apparent when Alexander Williams visits the doctor, for example, is shaped by his ability to use language to control how the doctor perceives him. Alex is at ease with adults (so much so that he casually interrupts the doctor); he visits the doctor often enough to be familiar with the routines; and since he is used to being questioned and having his answers attended to, he supplies information fluidly. It is different when Harold goes to a clinic for a physical for Bible camp. Mistrust of doctors and other professionals and lack of familiarity with the practices and terminology of health-care professionals combine to tongue-tie his mother and constrain him. Harold has neither the language nor conversational skills that Alexander takes for granted. He is unfamiliar with questioning and probing, and he has no experience making special demands of persons in authority. The result is an emerging sense of constraint. The positive aspects of Harold’s upbringing—the ease he displays with his peers, his resourcefulness in creating games and organizing his own time, his respectful attitude toward adults, his deep connection to family members—are rendered nearly invisible in the “real world” of social institutions. Educators, health-care professionals, employers, and others accept (and help to reproduce) an ideology that values, among other things, reasoning and negotiating skills, large vocabularies, facility in speaking and working with strangers, and time management—the very attributes children like Alexander Williams develop in their daily lives. By looking closely at parts of Harold’s life, especially the role of language, this chapter uncovers ways in which these institutional preferences evolve into institutionalized inequality, as differences come to be defined as deficits.
LETTING HAROLD BE “PLAIN OLD HAROLD”:
THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF NATURAL GROWTH
Harold McAllister, the target child, is a fourth-grader at Lower Richmond elementary school. With his large shoulders and stocky build, he has the look of a budding football player. This is how Alexis describes her older brother:
Harold is plain old Harold. He never changes. He does the same thing over and over and over again. He listens to the radio. He plays basketball. He listens to the radio. He watches TV. He goes to sleep. He watches TV. He listens to the radio, he watches TV, he plays basketball. And he’s just plain old Harold. He don’t do nothing that’s fun.
In Harold’s view, doing the “same thing over and over” is fun. He loves sports and would happily play basketball (which he is particularly fond of) or football for most of any given day. He follows professional sports closely. Most afternoons, he is either watching television or, more likely, outside playing ball. The number of children available to play with varies, but for Harold, unlike for Alexander Williams, there is always someone to play with. There are forty children of elementary school age residing in the rows of apartments sur
rounding the McAllister’s apartment. With so many children nearby, Harold could choose to play only with others his own age. In fact, though, he spends time with both older and younger children, and with his cousins (who are close to his age).
Family Ties
Unlike Alexander Williams or Garrett Tallinger, Harold has ready access to his extended family. His cousins, Runako and Guion, practically live at his house, and his aunts are close by. But family ties are more than a matter of convenience. The connections linking Harold to his cousins and aunts, to his grandmother, to his father, and to his father’s relatives are fundamentally important to him—they form the context of his life. On any given day, he is likely to share a bed with Runako and a basketball with his cousin Guion. He runs errands for his aunts, and he takes the bus by himself to visit his grandmother and his father’s relatives.
Harold celebrates special occasions such as his birthday with his relatives. Among the McAllisters, the parties are not, as in middle-class families, based on friends from school or from extracurricular activities. Extended family members pool their resources and energies, celebrating birthdays with enthusiasm. There is cake and special food; presents, however, are not often part of the occasion. Similarly, at Christmas there is a tree and special food, but no presents. At these and other family events, older children voluntarily play with and take care of their younger siblings and cousins while adults mingle and talk among themselves.
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