Unequal Childhoods - Annette Lareau [134]
Linda Yanelli is thirty-six but looks younger, in part because at home she often is dressed in denim cutoffs and a cotton T-shirt; she has bare feet and her brown hair is pulled back into a ponytail. Ms. Yanelli cleans houses in the suburbs (off the books) for $12 an hour. Her job is tiring. In teams of four, she and her co-workers move from house to house in her bosses’ car; she does not get a regularly scheduled lunch break. On Thursdays, for example, she doesn’t get home until after 6:00 P.M. because her team cleans nine houses in one day. As a result of his job as a house painter, Mr. Yanelli, a thin, quiet, man in his late thirties, is often dressed in paint-splattered pants and shirts.1 Someone who has been working since he was fourteen, he dislikes his work intensely, particularly since he switched to a new job with a boss he sees as demanding and greedy. He is up and out at work early in the morning and is often home by 4:30 P.M. He enjoys his son, however, and takes an active role in driving him to his baseball games, assisting the coach, and chastising Billy to swing at the ball. (He will yell, “Swing!” Shaking his head ruefully, he says, “He is afraid of the ball.”) Mr. Yanelli also plays cards with Little Billy. As he passes through the house, Mr. Yanelli will affectionately ruffle the top of Billy’s head, calling him “Muke,” a favorite nickname. In accord with the traditional gender division of labor, however, he is not involved at all in Billy’s child care or schooling: “it is her department.” Ms. Yanelli also has a twenty-one-year-old son, Manny, from a previous marriage who works and lives at home (although he spends quite a bit of time at his girlfriend’s house). When he is working, everyone gets along fine; when he is not working there can be tension between Mr. Yanelli and Manny.
Both of the Yanelli parents dropped out of high school. Neither of the adults has health insurance; the cost of getting sick is a constant cause of worry.2 When they are really sick, they go to the hospital emergency room, which can cost hundreds of dollars, and then pay off the bill, bit by bit. Money is always tight, although much less so than years ago when Ms. Yanelli was on welfare. Today, she is very proud of the fact that they have a credit card. They do not, however, have a checking account; all bills are paid with money orders. Both enjoy “playing the numbers” and regularly place small bets, as well as bets on the local football team. Occasionally they will “hit” a number; a $250 hit paid for their new dining room furniture.
Both Mr. and Ms. Yanelli came from families in which their parents were struggling economically. Ms. Yanelli’s family, for example, moved frequently. Her parents divorced when she was very young, and her mother (Billy’s grandmother) married again when Ms. Yanelli was two. Her stepfather, whom she calls “Dad,” worked in factory jobs but never learned to read or write. Her biological father died when she was thirteen, allegedly of a suicide in the city prison. Ms. Yanelli is dubious:
He always kept in contact. He always came to see us. He was always a good father. When he was thirty-three years old he hung himself in prison. And there was a lot of debate about—did the policeman do it? There was a lot of stuff with the police at the time. But he would never kill himself. He wasn’t that kind of man. He just bought a