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By Root 1384 0

having meals at fast food restaurants such as McDonald’s, taking an interest in specific dolls and action figures, and eagerly anticipating Halloween and important family holidays. As I show in subsequent chapters, all parents (regardless of social class) face the task of getting children up, dressed, fed, and transported to school, and getting them medical attention when sick. Thus, some experiences are threaded through the lives of all families. Nevertheless, social class differences influence the very pace and rhythm of daily life. The next chapter, which examines the life of Garrett Tallinger, shows how middle-class parents’ efforts to develop their children’s talents through organized leisure activities can create a frenetic family life.

PART I

Organization of Daily Life

SOCIAL CLASS DIFFERENCES IN CHILDREN’S life experiences can be seen in the details of life. In our study, the pace of life was different for middle-class families compared to working-class and poor families. In the middle class, life was hectic. Parents were racing from activity to activity. In families with more than one child, parents often juggled conflicts between children’s activities. In these families, economic resources for food, clothing, shelter, transportation, children’s activities, and other routine expenses were in ample supply. Of course, some parents often felt short of money. At times they were not able to enjoy the vacations that they would have liked. But, as I show, families routinely spent hundreds and even thousands of dollars per year promoting children’s activities.

Because there were so many children’s activities, and because they were accorded so much importance, children’s activities determined the schedule for the entire family. Siblings tagged along, sometimes willingly and sometimes not. Adults’ leisure time was absorbed by children’s activities. Children also spent much of their time in the company of adults or being directed by adults. They also had informal free time, but generally it was sandwiched between structured activities. In the organization of daily life, children’s interests and activities were treated as matters of consequence.

In working-class and poor families, the organization of daily life differed from that of middle-class families. Here, there was economic strain not felt by many middle-class families. Particularly in poor families, it took enormous labor to get family members through the day, as mothers scrimped to make food last until they were able to buy more, waited for buses that didn’t come, carried children’s laundry out to public washers, got young children up, fed, dressed, and ready for school and oversaw children’s daily lives. Children were aware of the economic strain. Money matters were frequently discussed.

Although money was in short supply, children’s lives were more relaxed and, more importantly, the pace of life was slower. Children played with other children outside of the house. They frequently played with their cousins. Some children had organized activities, but they were far fewer than in middle-class families. Other times, children wanted to be in organized activities, but economic constraints, compounded by lack of transportation, made participation prohibitive. When children sought to display their budding talents and pursue activities more informally around the house, adults often treated children’s interests as inconsequential. In addition, since they were not riding around in cars with parents going to organized activities or being directed by adults in structured activities, children in working-class and poor families had more autonomy from adults. Working-class and poor children had long stretches of free time during which they watched television and played with relatives and friends in the neighborhood, creating ways to occupy themselves. In these activities, there was more of a separation between adults’ worlds and children’s worlds.

In sum, there were social class differences in the number of organized activities, pace of family life, economic strain