Unequal Childhoods - Annette Lareau [233]
10. A majority of middle-class and working-class parents self-report the use of reasoning in child rearing. Since there is an emphasis in broader cultural repertoires of the importance of using reasoning, it is not surprising that parents of all social classes might report that they use reasoning. Indeed, for many of the working-class and poor parents, physical discipline was a “last resort.” Studies do consistently show that more educated mothers, however, are more likely to stress reasoning. See, among others, Cheryl Blueston and Catherine S. Tamis-LeMonda, “Correlates of Parenting Styles in Predominantly Working- and Middle-Class African American Mothers.”
11. Of course, some middle-class parents also appeared slightly anxious during parent-teacher meetings. But overall, middle-class parents spoke more, and they asked educators more questions, including more critical and penetrating ones, than did working-class and poor parents.
12. Working-class and poor children often resisted and tested school rules, but they did not seem to be engaged in the same process of seeking an accommodation by educators to their own individual preferences that I witnessed among middle-class children. Working-class and poor children tended to react to adults’ offers or, at times, plead with educators to repeat previous experiences, such as reading a particular story, watching a movie, or going to the computer room. In these interactions, the boundaries between adults and children were firmer and clearer than those with middle-class children.
13. Carol Heimer and Lisa Staffen, For the Sake of the Children.
14. My discussion here is necessarily speculative. Parents of all social classes took for granted key aspects of their child rearing and thus had difficulty articulating the rationale behind their actions.
15. In the South, children between the ages of ten and thirteen comprised one-third of the workers in textile mills between 1870 and 1900. Viviana Zelizer, Pricing the Priceless Child. See especially chapter 2.
16. Quoted in Zelizer, Pricing the Priceless Child, p. 78.
17. Zelizer, Pricing the Priceless Child, p. 67.
18. Zelizer, Pricing the Priceless Child, p. 59.
19. Zelizer, Pricing the Priceless Child, p. 97.
20. See William Corsaro, Sociology of Childhood.
21. As Randall Collins notes, Max Weber assigns multiple meanings to the term rationalization. Here I am referring to the meaning that “emerges when Weber compares different types of institutions. Bureaucracy is described as a rational form of administrative organization as opposed to the irrational elements found in patrimonialism . . . . The key [conditions] here seem to be predictability and regularity . . . . There is a strong implication that rationality is based on written rules, and hence on paperwork.” Randall Collins, Max Weber: A Skeleton Key, pp. 63, 78.
22. Ritzer also discusses the importance of efficiency. See George Ritzer, The McDonaldization of Society.
23. Ritzer, The McDonaldization of Society, p. 3.
24. Hays, The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood, p. 11.
25. On safety see Mark Warr and Christopher G. Ellison, “Rethinking Social Reactions to Crime,” as well as Joel Best, Threatened Children. On changes in work-family relationships see Rosanna Hertz and Nancy L. Marshall, Working Families, as well as demographic research. On time spent with children, see Suzanne Bianchi, “Maternal Employment and Time with Children.” On suburbanization see Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier.
26. Hays, Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood.
27. In 2002, enrolling a child in a single sport could cost as much as $5000 per year. The estimates for ice hockey include $100 skates (which usually need to be replaced twice a year), $60 gloves, and annual league fees of up to $2,700. David M. Halbfinger, “Our Town: A Hockey Parent’s Life.”
28.