Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life

“Parents’ social structural location has profound implications for their children’s life chances.”

Lareau refers to the economic and social position parents and their children find themselves in have a significant influence on children’s future. Depending on whether they are part of the middle or working-class or if they are extremely poor, parents will be able to afford their children certain opportunities. This usually comes in the form of extracurricular activities like sports and art. Children in the middle-class learn through these experiences to negotiate and customize their situations and deal with authority in an assertive way, which follows them into their future education and career. Working-class and poor children, on the other hand, are not afforded these white-collar skills and thus are at a disadvantage later in life.

“Common economic position in the society, defined in terms of social class membership, is closely tied to differences in the cultural logic of child rearing.”

Lareau notes key differences in the ways parents raise their children based on their economic status. She finds that parents in middle-class homes use language as a mechanism for open communication, teaching negotiation skills, and encouraging creativity in their children. On the other hand, she finds that language is more of a practical tool used for directives and basic communication in working-class and poor families, with children being seen as separate from adults and in need of discipline and protection. Physical discipline is also more common in families with less verbal communication.

“For Garrett, expenditures like these are simply part of his life; they are (unexamined) entitlements. He can’t—and doesn’t—even imagine that for working-class and poor children, these same taken-for-granted items and opportunities are viewed as (unavailable) privileges.”

Garrett Tallinger is a boy living in a white middle-class family. His life outside of school consists of various tailored and scheduled activities, such as soccer and baseball, which he attends and enjoys. These events take up most of his and his parents’ leisure time, and Lareau calls this method of child rearing “concerted cultivation” because parents are actively trying to develop their child into someone who will succeed in the stereotypical, career-oriented fashion. Garrett does not understand that these activities, which are entitlements that are costly and that his parents afford him, are not available or even an object of query for many children whose parents are working-class or poor.

“The cultural logic of the accomplishment of natural growth grants children an autonomous world, apart from adults, in which they are free to try out new experiences and develop important social competencies.”

Throughout her book, Lareau asserts the ways in which working-class and poor families raise children are not inherently inferior, just different. It is instead the institutional structure that deems the skills these children learn as not as useful. When children experience the accomplishment of natural growth, they are allowed to create their own worlds, their own entertainment, and their own bonds. They learn how to be leaders and to manage conflict as well as defend themselves. They learn how to be independent and handle the world without parents’ help. Lareau insists these are very useful skills that are simply not realized as often in the career world.

“In general, the children of middle-class parents have a sense that they are special, that their opinions matter, and that adults should, as a matter of routine, adjust situations to meet children’s wishes.”

From her research, Lareau concludes that many middle-class children are brought up with a sense of entitlement regarding the way institutions, adults, and authority figures adjust to their demands and needs. These children learn to negotiate and reason alongside adults and are often spoken to and developed in such a way that they will grow up to have strong social skills. However, because of this sense of entitlement, children and their parents often believe institutions should adhere to their every wish. When this does not pan out as planned, parents and children are left frustrated and angry that their expectations are not being met.

“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.”

Lareau believes that a sense of entitlement develops in children who are reared using the concerted cultivation method. This sense of entitlement develops because children not only watch their parents negotiate institutions on their behalf, but they also learn their own skills of negotiating. Through interactions with their parents, siblings, teachers, and doctors, children in the middle-class learn to customize situations and expect adults in their lives to acclimate to their needs. These skills in negotiation and reasoning are placed at a premium in American society where most high-paying jobs require a college education.

“Institutional preferences evolve into institutional inequality, as differences come to be defined as deficits.”

Lareau observes that institutions prefer the skills acquired by children raised with concerted cultivation rather than the skills the accomplishment of natural growth affords. The skills institutions favor are what Lareau calls white-collar skills because they are heavily based in reasoning and negotiation. Reasoning and negotiation are seen as valuable by schools and jobs alike, thus middle-class children are at an advantage when it comes to their education and careers. Although institutions do not intentionally fail to include working-class and poor children, they view their learned skills as deficits rather than benefits. These set preferences result in inequalities between social classes.

“Among middle-class families, race played a role, not in terms of whether or how parents intervened in their children’s organizational lives, but rather, in the kinds of issues that they kept their eyes on and in the number of potential problems parents and children faced.”

Lareau does not find significant differences based on race in terms of parenting style or influences of social class. However, she does find that Black families and their children are more likely to experience certain types of discrimination from these institutions. Alexander Williams reports being followed around stores by security despite being in an Ivy League school. As a child, his parents taught him to ignore racism and to keep his head above it at all times. They kept a close eye on whether he was experiencing racism by ensuring that there were other Black children in his classes and activities and by keeping open communication with him.

“In the middle class, children’s activities outside of the home often penetrate deeply into the heart of family life and in doing so create opportunities for conflict.”

Middle-class families tend to use the concerted cultivation approach in child rearing, which involves many extracurricular activities designed to develop various skills in the child. These activities often take up most or all the family’s leisure time, and parents and siblings are often left in the shadow of the child or children who are being developed in this way. Because siblings in these families are taught to be individualistic and competitive, they often compete with each other as well. This leads to conflicts between them. Furthermore, parents and children can experience conflict with each other either when the child demands too many activities or when the child or parents become exhausted and overly stressed.

“Even with similar levels of class resources, some parents may be able to activate the resources more effectively than others.”

Lareau describes the struggles of the Handlon family, who could not manage to use their usually viable negotiation skills to help Melanie Handlon succeed with her schooling. Ms. Handlon was a hands-on and somewhat overbearing mother, who took it up upon herself to guide Melanie through her homework step by step, question by question. She uses this method rather than confronting the school directly about the overload of homework Melanie receives. Often, Ms. Handlon and her daughter encounter conflict with one another as a result. Lareau asserts the skills acquired by the middle-class, while usually useful, are not foolproof or guarantees of success.

“Working-class parents such as the Yanellis experienced a sense of distance and distrust, of exclusion and risk, with schools.”

Working-class and poor families have a complex relationship with the institution of school. There is a lack of trust both toward the institution from the family and toward the family from the institution. Many of the child rearing values used commonly by working-class parents, such as physical discipline and loud verbal commands, clash with the values of the school system (who would be responsible for reporting any suspected child abuse). As a result, families are on constant alert and comply with school demands and advice without question to avoid any possible trouble. This disconnected relationship between these families and their schools follows children like Billy Yanelli for their entire education, putting them at a severe disadvantage.

“There are systemic forms of inequality, including, for example, differences in parents’ educational levels, occupational prestige and income, as well as in their child-rearing practices.”

Inequality is not just the result of individual decisions or the amount of work a person puts into life, although many people in America believe this to be the case. Lareau insists that inequality is a systemic issue that stems from the institutional biases that are upheld in society today. Parents who are part of the working-class or poor classes generally have lower education levels, lower paying jobs, and a different style of parenting known as the accomplishment of natural growth. As a result, the children in these families are burdened with the same inequalities their parents suffered.

“My own view is that seeing selected aspects of family life as differentiated by social class is simply a better way to understand the reality of American family life.”

Lareau feels that categorizing family styles based on social class is a useful and logical way to understand the difficulties that families in America face today. Middle-class families face the struggles of overscheduling and lack of close family bonds. Working-class and poor families face institutional barriers and lower educational and financial development. Lareau’s data, combined with national statistical data, confirms that class is associated with parenting style, language use, the organization of daily life, and institutional relationships.

“Both concerted cultivation and the accomplishment of natural growth offer intrinsic benefits (and burdens) for parents and their children. Nevertheless, these practices are accorded different social values by important social institutions.”

Lareau finds that the parenting approaches of the middle-class and working-class/poor families that she studied have inherent benefits and challenges for parents and children. The concerted cultivation approach common in middle-class families causes stress, chaos, and sometimes lacks close family bonds but does provide children with essential skills in negotiation and reasoning, which are used to further their education and eventual career. The accomplishment of natural growth offers children a chance to develop independence, respect, and a strong sense of self, but these skills are considered less valuable by the institutions that control the futures of these children.

“The ideology of individual accomplishment leads middle-class young adults to see their actions as tied to their own accomplishments.”

Lareau argues that middle-class children and young adults develop a sense of entitlement regarding their power in negotiating with and customizing institutions. This sense of entitlement is rooted in the American value of individualism, which purports that people are responsible for their own success and that hard work and persistence can lead anyone to a better future. Middle-class youth do not sense there is a class imbalance that allowed them to develop skills through organized activities and educated parents that their working-class and poor counterparts do not. Instead, as Lareau finds in her follow-up study, they believe it is entirely due to their own intelligence and hard work that they succeeded.

“For the working-class and poor families whose life experience had involved moving into the world of work immediately after high school, college was a foreign country.”

Lareau argues that family structure and social class are generational positions parents pass onto their children. Parents who are members of the working-class or who are poor are likely to lack a college education. Because of this discrepancy, they celebrate the successes that would be considered minor by the middle-class, such as graduating high school. Most parents in the working class do not expect their children will attend college; instead, they just hope they will survive and be happy. When these children grow up, they adopt this same attitude—life is about getting by.

“As travellers in foreign lands often discover, it is easy to make simple mistakes.”

Lareau occasionally uses metaphor to communicate a larger truth about the lives of families in America. Working-class and poor parents often lack the informal knowledge and educational resources that middle-class families use to successfully navigate institutions like school. This puts these families at an automatic disadvantage and the children involved are left constrained by the institutions that control their future. A simple mistake, such as mixing up deadlines or misunderstanding a requirement for a special program, can cost a child in a working-class or poor family their future. For these families, school is a somewhat foreign and separate part of life.

“In many of the working-class and poor families, however, both parents and youth conceptualized young adults as ‘grown’ and therefore capable of solving (most of) their own problems.”

In middle-class families, young adults often continue to receive financial, social, and informational support from their parents well into their 20s. As they continue their education, many live at home or rely on their parents to help them apply and then navigate through their college education successfully. On the other hand, working-class and poor families often view their children as being fully grown by the time they are 18. The children view themselves this way as well. Many are expected to go find their own place to live to ease up finances at home, and many marry or have children much younger than their middle-class counterparts.

“Because social class is a significant force, existing social inequality gets reproduced over time, regardless of each new generation’s aspirations, talent, effort, and imagination.”

Social class is generational. For instance, as people in the poor or working-class grow up in often unstable environments, when they become adults, they are likely to repeat that pattern. When these adults have children, they raise these children within the context of a constant struggle to make ends meet and navigate institutions. Whether a child has a special talent, is particularly creative or intelligent has little bearing on whether they will successfully navigate their education and achieve a stable career. This is because institutions decide which skills are of value and often exclude the skills acquired by those of poor or working-class status.

“What is crucial to keep in mind, however, is that these are examples of variations. They tell us about what sometimes happens, not about the norm […] social class origins have effects that are powerful and long lasting.”

Lareau acknowledges that social mobility does occur in America. She cites that a couple families from her study have moved from home renters to owners, and one middle-class child actually moved into the working-class after rejecting her college acceptance. For the most part though, social class is an overarching and key influence in what opportunities are afforded to people in their lives. The social class children are raised in includes their economic status, education, and the way they are parented; as such, these influences affect them for their entire lives.

“An essential first step for researchers, however, is to more directly acknowledge the emotional cost of ethnographic work for study participants.”

Very few ethnographic studies pursue follow-up data in the years after the study, and even fewer seek feedback from the participants on the book or journal articles written about the study. Lareau dares to travel both of these roads when she conducts a 10-year follow-up study with all 12 key subjects and their families. In the original follow-up interviews, every subject is happy to talk with her and report how life is unfolding for them in young adulthood. Unfortunately, once most of them read the book, they were no longer happy with Lareau or the way she portrayed them and their families. Lareau explains that the emotional toll participating in such an invasive and longitudinal study such as hers can be high for subjects. Furthermore, the ripples of the study can follow subjects for years to come when the study is finally released and results and interpretations are exposed. Lareau believes that researchers, including herself, need to be more mindful of the potential consequences of their research on participants.

“The dual process of seeking to reduce feelings of anger and pain while also accepting that such emotions may occur remains an enduring challenge.”

Lareau is a sociological researcher but also a human being. While this may seem obvious, it may come as a surprise to some readers to learn that she became emotionally invested in many of the subjects of her study and sent all of them Christmas cards each year. She cares about the families she worked with and was upset to find that many of them were disturbed or offended by her portrayal of them. Lareau cites her lack of experience and young assertiveness at the time, and she regrets not having been more careful in some of her wording and the way she described events that were witnessed by field workers. She explains that there is a balance researchers must find between being honest about their data and keeping the pain of participants to a minimum.

“All parents want the very best for their children. Yet parents do not have the same resources, gifts, or opportunities to give to the children they hold close to their hearts.”

Lareau challenges the commonly held assumption that working-class and poor parents do not want the best for their children or that they do not work as hard to help their children succeed. She believes that virtually all parents have the same desire to see their children flourish, be happy and healthy, and find success in their own way. Unfortunately, parents in the working and poor classes do not have the same educational, informational, social, and communication resources that middle-class parents have. Thus, although they do their best to navigate the institutions that shape their children’s lives, they are often constrained by their lack of resources.