Unequal Childhoods - Annette Lareau [34]
Moreover, pressures related to family life are not borne equally by Mr. Tallinger and Ms. Tallinger. Although Mr. Tallinger participates actively in his children’s lives, his job keeps him away from home two to three days per week. When she worked full time, Ms. Tallinger typically assumed more of a leadership role in monitoring, feeding, and helping the children with daily life tasks. Still, Mr. Tallinger was an unusually competent father and played an active role in child care when Ms. Tallinger traveled for work.
It is also Ms. Tallinger who makes the career adjustments when faced with family conflicts. Near the end of the study, Ms. Tallinger decided to quit her job. Looking for an opportunity closer to home, so that she could be around as an “anchor” for the children, she eventually took a job as a high-level manager for a local nonprofit organization, one with minimal travel requirements. She describes this action as a decision to “put my career on the shelf.”
Still, in some areas of home labor, Mr. Tallinger contributes far more than what we observed among fathers in other middle-class homes. He regularly and competently gets the children off to school on mornings when his wife has an early meeting or is out of town. One morning when Ms. Tallinger leaves early, he stays behind to take the children to school and to attend “Donuts with Dad,” an event sponsored by the parent-teachers organization. The boys are in the basement, playing. They have stuffed pillows under their shirts to make themselves look more like hockey goalies:
All of a sudden [Don] calls down from upstairs in a semi-mad voice, “Spencer—did you feed Ivan and Farley? Garrett did you feed the fish?” Spencer says, “I fed Ivan.” Both move quickly to head up the stairs; they walk up with the fat pillows under their chests. As they start to move, [Don] calls down, “Feed Farley. And Garrett—feed the fish.” I follow them upstairs. Garrett goes in the den to feed the fish.
After Garrett feeds the fish, he walks into the kitchen (with the fat pillow still under his shirt) and stands near the table. His father is shuffling papers; the all-news radio station is playing loudly. Mr. Tallinger (not commenting on the pillow) begins a series of reminders:
[Don] says, “You are going to take the bus?” Garrett says, “Yes.” “. . . What time does the bus come? . . . Do you have a key?” Garrett nods but looks in his backpack. [Don] nods and then says, “Don’t miss the bus.”
During this interaction, Mr. Tallinger appears rushed and irritable as he tries to remember various tasks. Sam and Spencer whine and complain as they wait by the front door for their father to take them to school. Their father, passing through the hallway, stops to reprimand Sam. “Sam! Cut it out,” he orders.
In the families we observed, fathers were neither as knowledgeable of nor as involved in child care as Mr. Tallinger. But even he did not seem to define children’s home-related responsibilities as labor that was equally his. When both parents were present, most family labor fell to Ms. Tallinger. She was the one who found and ironed the boys’ pants the day of the piano recital and who arranged the recital refreshments (strawberries and poppy seed muffins), who bought the children’s teachers Christmas and end-of-year gifts, and who wrote the teachers notes to thank them for their efforts during the year. Significantly, this pattern of gendered labor met the expectations of both children and school personnel: Mothers, not fathers, were expected to sign permission slips and help children with routine life tasks.
A CULTIVATED CHILDHOOD: GARRETT’S VIEW
Garrett is not an especially demonstrative child, but it is clear that he enjoys his activities, particularly those related to sports, and thinks that without them, his life would be “boring.” Unlike Tyrec Taylor, a working-class boy who is discussed in the next chapter, Garrett does not complain about having to go to practices or games. If he has to miss a game, he is visibly disappointed. During