Unequal Childhoods - Annette Lareau [153]
Anything that can be done to provide a safety net for the poor (and working class) will increase the resources of . . . children and therefore make it possible for them to engage in some of the activities that they’re currently excluded from. This exclusion takes place not only because they don’t have the money to participate but also because parental time is so limited. If parental time (say, thanks to fewer hours at work) were more available, there might be more access to participation. Under this rubric, I’d put things like universal health care, state-supported daycare, (and) a guaranteed minimum income.36
In addition, an increase in federal and state recreation monies would be useful since, in interviews I conducted with directors of recreation programs in the regions surrounding Swan and Lower Richmond schools, it was clear that as the township became more affluent, more elaborate recreational programs were available. Vouchers for extracurricular activities and transportation to activities (e.g., music lessons, art lessons, sports programs, and specialized summer camps) are another possibility. A problem is that neighborhoods are often relatively homogenous by social class. Consolidating neighborhoods so that working-class and poor children become part of more affluent neighborhoods would be likely to increase access to desirable facilities. What is far less likely, however, is the existence of the political will to support this redistribution of wealth. Instead, Americans, as is their wont, are likely to remain preoccupied with more individual solutions. Since, however, the problems differ by social class, the solutions do as well. Below, I review some of the possibilities.
Slowing It Down: Policy Implications for Middle-Class Families
The frenetic schedule of some middle-class families is a topic that increasingly bubbles up in media reports. As a result, there is an emerging social movement of professionals and middle-class parents to resist the scheduling of children’s lives. Books, including The Over-Scheduled Child, insist that children’s schedules are out of control:
It is Tuesday at 6:45 A.M. Belinda, age seven, is still asleep. School doesn’t start until 9:00 A.M. and her mother usually lets her sleep until 7:30 A.M. But not on Tuesdays. That’s the day Belinda has a 7:30 A.M. piano lesson. From it she goes directly to school, which lasts until three. Then the babysitter drives Belinda to gymnastics for the 4:00–6:30 P.M. class. While Tuesday is the busiest day, the rest of the week is filled up too, with religious school and choir practice, ballet, and (Belinda’s favorite) horseback riding. “She’s pretty worn out by the end of the day,” her mother laments . . . “I’m not really sure it is a good thing [to be so busy]. But I want to give her the advantages I didn’t have.”37
The authors are outraged by this kind of schedule:
We sense that our family lives are out of whack, but we aren’t sure why. We know we are doing too much for our kids, but we don’t know where it might be okay to cut back— . . . every time we . . . turn [around] . . . someone else is adding something new to the list of things we are supposed to be doing for our children to make sure they turn out right.38
Resistance is spreading. At the collective level, grassroots organizations such as “Family Life First,” based in Wayzata, Minnesota, are pressuring coaches and adult leaders of other organized activities to make family time a