Unequal Childhoods - Annette Lareau [136]
My brothers calls me every single day, “What are you doin’?” “Nothin’,” “See you later . . . “ My family talks every day. My other brother will call as soon as he thinks I’m available just to say what are you doin’ and how did you make out at the school this morning? My whole family has total contact every day.
With family, “There’s always somebody there for them and somebody who cares about them no matter what kind of life they have. That’s important.”
Still, the Yanellis are not close to all of their relatives. Mr. Yanelli was working a job with his younger brother, Charlie, and he suddenly saw his other brother, Ray, a drug addict, pushing a cart like an old man. Mr. Yanelli gave five dollars to Charlie to hand over to their brother Ray, but he did not go over himself to visit.
At school, Little Billy usually gets B’s but is considered to be a behavior problem. His mother calls him the class clown. He often is in trouble at school, for example, for throwing rocks, pulling chairs out from underneath other students as they go to sit down, getting in fights with other children, and various other forms of “acting out.” Mr. Tier described him as follows:
He’s a goofball. I’m sorry, but he is . . . You know what a goofball is like. He crosses his eyes. He sticks his tongue out and he makes weird sounds.
Mr. Tier was also troubled by Billy’s difficulty getting along with his peers. The school counselor, Ms. Franklin, agreed:
Billy’s a bright child;, he’s got good potential. [But] his mouth gets him into trouble. He says things to other children that set them off a lot of times. He’ll talk about kids’ mothers . . . He knows how to make other children angry and react . . . I really do feel a lot of his behaviors are inappropriate for a child his age . . . [they are more appropriate] for a much younger child . . . six, seven years old.
Because of his behavioral difficulties at school, the teachers have strongly recommended that Billy see the school counselor on a weekly basis. They have also recommended counseling for the family, which the father considers outrageous. His mother believes it likely that she will ultimately have to acquiesce as she did for the school counseling for Billy, saying, “I feel pushed, I really do.” The school counselor, Ms. Franklin, was aware of her reluctance:
The mom has had some real resistance to his being involved in group therapy . . . It’s taken a lot of work on our part to get her to permit him to be in these situations. I think she has the idea, as many parents have, that therapy means you’re saying your child is crazy. That’s not what we were saying.
There were many ways that Ms. Yanelli complied with school standards. For example, it was important to Little Billy’s parents that he do well academically. His mother monitored his homework to make sure that it was done. When buying clothes for the fall, she was careful to comply with school guidelines. The mother attended all parent-teacher conferences and even, at times, contacted the school when concerned about a problem. At times, however, the parents were defiant of school regulations. Little Billy’s parents, for example, encouraged him to defend himself on the playground in direct opposition to school rules. During fourth grade, tired of hearing that Little Billy was being pummeled by another white boy in his classroom, Mr. Yanelli and his uncle taught him how to fight and instructed him to go to school the next day to “get the job done.” When Little Billy was suspended, the parents remained pleased by Little Billy’s hitting, although his actions were in direct violation of school rules. Ms. Franklin, the school