Unequal Childhoods - Annette Lareau [225]
2. See David M. Halbfinger, “Our Town,” wherein parents report spending almost $6,000 annually on hockey alone.
3. As with many American households, the Tallingers had accumulated debt and had limited savings. For a more detailed discussion of the Tallingers’ financial situation (as well as the Yanelli, Driver, and Greeley families), see the dissertation by Patricia Berhau, Class and the Experiences of Consumers.
4. See Gai Ingham Berlage’s paper, “Are Children’s Competitive Team Sports Teaching Corporate Values?” for a study of fathers of children on hockey and soccer travel teams. Fathers expressed the belief that their son’s participation would increase “teamwork” and “self-discipline.” Still, the actual impact on their work careers is unclear, and a study of college athletes, James Shulman and William Bowen, The Game of Life, challenges some of these assumptions about the long-term effects of athletic participation.
5. See Melvin Kohn and Carmi Schooler, Work and Personality.
6. Perhaps in recognition of this reality, Intercounty soccer team organizers require team members to sign a document pledging to make this activity their priority.
7. Mr. Tallinger believes in the value of spanking, however. With Sam in particular, he uses spanking as a threat. For a detailed look at the role of reasoning in concerted cultivation, see Chapter 6.
CHAPTER 4: A CHILD’S PACE
1. Elijah Anderson documents the importance of complying with codes of respect, particularly in children’s relations with adults. See his book Code of the Street.
2. We did not observe middle-class Black children use such terms; rather they called adults by their first names. We also did not observe poor and working-class white children automatically use honorific terms with adults, which is suggestive of a difference across racial groups in this aspect of family life within working-class and poor families.
3. During their four-year separation, Ms. Taylor and Mr. Taylor reconciled at one point. They lived together again for eighteen months before splitting up a second time.
4. Tyrec’s closest friends, the boys we observed him play with daily, all are Black. In an interview, however, his mother reported that he has three good friends who are white.
5. It is unclear the degree to which Tyrec wanted to sign up again. What is salient here is that the mother was “praying” that he would not want to do so. Unlike in the middle-class families, there was no presumption of children being involved in organizations and activities. For a discussion of the crucial role of mothers in screening programs before allowing children to participate in recreational services, see Dennis R. Howard and Robert Madrigal, “Who Makes the Decision: The Parent or the Child?”
CHAPTER 5: CHILDREN’S PLAY IS FOR CHILDREN
1. C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination.
2. Although the Brindles have moved frequently in the past (Jenna, who went to school only through tenth grade, attended twenty different schools), they have been in their current neighborhood for more than two years, and Katie has been in the same elementary school for four years.
3. Although the person was never caught, Ms. Brindle suspects a neighbor in the apartment building where they lived previously. The man was the father of one of Katie’s playmates.
4. John is schizophrenic and cannot work; Ryan is illiterate but he is employed.
5. Unlike Black families from similar economic circumstances, the Brindles lived in a neighborhood