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By Root 1437 0

stereo, VCR, electronic keyboard) and each adult has a car. All three children participate in at least some activities organized by adults. The cost of these activities is dismissed as “minimal” and inconsequential. There is no indication that the Handlons feel the need to “pinch pennies.” They live in cluttered comfort. On our first visit, Ms. Handlon remarks apologetically and with some embarrassment that “housework isn’t my strong suit.” Indeed, the dining room table is piled with all sorts of items—coupons, socks, used cups, a laundry basket of clean but unfolded clothes, and piles of papers. In the kitchen, dirty dishes sometimes pile up in the sink and are left unheeded on the table. In the living room, several half-opened boxes of Christmas ornaments rest on the couch for over a week while the Christmas tree is being decorated. This level of untidiness is not common among middle-class families, but it does not appear to cause trouble for the Handlons.

Unlike most middle-class families, the Handlons have many relatives who live close by. Melanie’s parents describe themselves as feeling emotionally close to these members of their extended family. They report seeing their relatives about once a week and note that they also spend major holidays with them, including Thanksgiving, at which time they had twenty people at the house. The Handlons’ interactions with kin are much more frequent than is typical among the middle class, but they do not approach the kinds of connections that are common among working-class and poor families. Among these groups, as previous chapters have shown, informal play and visits with cousins are not restricted to once a week or special occasions. Instead, they dominate everyday family life.

COMPETING VALUES: THE IMPORTANCE OF ORGANIZED

ACTIVITIES AND UNSTRUCTURED TIME

Compared to other middle-class children, Melanie does not have a “heavy” schedule of organized activities. She is by no means idle outside of school, however. During December, she juggles several regularly scheduled commitments with assorted holiday events. Every Sunday includes an early church service, Sunday school, and youth choir practice. Mondays she has a piano lesson; Thursdays she goes to Girl Scouts. In addition to these standing events, Melanie also takes part in a special Girl Scouts “cookies for the homeless” holiday event on a Monday night and a school holiday musical performance on a Tuesday night. In between her two orthodontist appointments and five special rehearsals for the Christmas pageant at her church, she manages to Christmas shop.

Melanie does not complain about her schedule, nor do her parents seem to consider her activities overly taxing. In fact, Ms. Handlon perceives all three of her children as spending less time in organized activities than other children in the neighborhood. Both Mr. and Ms. Handlon believe that children should have free, unstructured time. Mr. Handlon explicitly criticizes the tendency of parents to “overschedule” children. Nevertheless, both Handlons hope Melanie will take on another commitment—they want her to join a swim team in the spring. When tryouts took place the previous year, Melanie had declined to participate. Her parents continue to bring the topic up from time to time, including around Christmastime. Mr. and Ms. Handlon’s belief that Melanie’s involvement in swimming would be an objectively good thing for her apparently trumps their resistance to the “overscheduling” of children. It can be a difficult trade-off. Middle-class parents (especially mothers) worry that if their children do not enroll in organized activities, they will have no one to play with after school and/or during spring and summer breaks. This kind of concern is clearly present with the Handlons. In addition to their desire to see Melanie enroll in swimming, they would like her to give softball a try. One winter evening, as the family is sitting around watching television, Melanie’s mother mentions softball three times. Although on each occasion she frames the decision to play softball as Melanie