Unequal Childhoods - Annette Lareau [64]
I am watching them, but no one else is watching. Grandmom is watching TV. (She’s looking straight ahead; Amy’s father is there, but he ignores the girls’ performance; Uncle John is also present, sitting on the couch, seemingly oblivious to everything around him.)9
When the girls escalate their demands for attention, Grandmom complies, but with a notable lack of enthusiasm:
Katie pretends to be a child coming to Santa. Amy [Santa] sits in the chair and receives her . . . Grandmom is not paying attention but is watching “Roseanne” [on TV]. Amy—indignant—reaches over and turns off the television as she says, “Grandmom! You aren’t watching!” Grandmom doesn’t say anything but focuses her attention on Amy for a little bit.10 Katie is standing next to her cousin. Katie makes little hops up and down. Amy repeats the drama: (holding up a bright red, furry Christmas stocking) she says, “This elf has a stocking with rocks in it because he has been given coal.” (She takes the rocks out and pours them from hand to hand.) Amy and Katie abruptly leave and go into [the next] room and huddle together. Grandmom does not seem at all interested in the skit.
The girls come back to the living room. In a louder, stage projection, voice they announce, “This is the first part.” Wearing Christmas stockings on their heads, they perform a short skit where Katie explains that she is “an orphan. (pause) My parents are deceased.” The orphan comes, beseechingly, to see Santa (Amy). Just as the skit is beginning to gather momentum, Amy’s father comes into the room.
[Ryan] does not look up to see what the girls are doing. Instead, he pulls out an older upright vacuum cleaner. He plugs it in and . . . begins to vacuum up the tinsel, which is underneath the girls’ feet and underneath the tree. Without looking up, he vacuums steadily . . . Amy is forced to move up the stairs to get out of the way of her father. She and Katie do not acknowledge this interruption.
Turning to the audience (which at this point consists only of me), Amy announces firmly, “That is the end of part one.” I smile and say, “Good job!” The girls regroup, plot out part two, come into the living room, and present that installment. Again, their grandmother offers the girls only the slightest acknowledgment, and Ryan continues to completely ignore his niece and daughter.
The vacuuming has gotten noisier; Ryan says, “This don’t sound right.” Ryan pulls the vacuum back, and in the entryway (exactly where the girls are performing), he lays the vacuum down and exposes the bottom of the machine. Ryan crouches down to look at the machine; Grandmom, ignoring the girls, gets on her knees to inspect.
The girls bow together and retreat to plot the third part. I join the investigation of the vacuum cleaner. The brush is matted with tinsel that has become tightly wound around the roller. Grandmom and I work together to extract the tinsel. Meanwhile, the girls have finished preparing part three. They come back. They stand right next to Grandmom and begin their skit. Since I am now down on the floor, involved with the vacuum cleaner, no one at all watches this phase of the play.
The girls do not pause or ask anyone to watch, but Amy announces in a loud stage voice, “Part Three.” This time they do a little dance . . . They hop up and down and swing their legs back and forth and chatter about Santa and his elves and how they are coming for a visit.
Grandmom is looking annoyed. The girls are standing almost on top of her and their legs are close to her; they are singing in loud and enthusiastic voices. She grimaces but doesn’t tell them to stop. She focuses more closely on the machine.11
Katie’s activities are not always ignored. For example, her mother watches, smiling occasionally, as Katie presents an at-home reenactment of the school ceremony in which she received a perfect attendance award for a