Unequal Childhoods - Annette Lareau [74]
Terry looked toward Alex and asked, while smiling, “How are you going to beat up Fritz if you don’t eat your vegetables?” Alex shook his head as he picked up a string bean with his fork, “I am not going to fight him!” Terry, smirking: “Are you going to let him bully you like he does the other kids?” Alex, alternating stares between his father and his plate: “I’ll fight him if I have no other choice, but I’ll tell one of the teachers so he can get suspended.”
Christina, looking at Alex and smiling: “That’s right, baby. You do not have to fight. There are better ways to resolve conflict. Go and tell the teacher if anyone is harassing you.”
Terry looked at Alex and said firmly, “There are going to be times when you are not going to be able to run, and you are going to have to fight. You are going to have to take a stand and defend yourself.”
Overall, the Williamses and other middle-class parents use language frequently, pleasurably, and instrumentally. Their children do likewise. For example, one January evening, Alexander is stumped by a homework assignment to write five riddles. He sits at the dinner table in the kitchen with his mother and a field-worker. Mr. Williams is at the sink, washing the dinner dishes. He has his back to the group at the dinner table. Without turning around, he says to Alex, “Why don’t you go upstairs to the third floor and get one of those books and see if there is a riddle in there?”
Alex [says] smiling, “Yeah. That’s a good idea! I’ll go upstairs and copy one from out of the book.” Terry turns around with a dish in hand, “That was a joke—not a valid suggestion. That is not an option.” He smiled as he turned back around to the sink. Christina says, looking at Alex: “There is a word for that you know, plagiarism.” Terry says (not turning around), “Someone can sue you for plagiarizing. Did you know that?” Alex: “That’s only if it is copyrighted.” They all begin talking at once.8
Here we see Alex cheerfully (though gently) goading his father by pretending to misunderstand the verbal instruction to consult a book for help. Mr. Williams dutifully rises to the bait. Ms. Williams reshapes this moment of lightheartedness by introducing a new word into Alexander’s vocabulary. Mr. Williams goes one step further by connecting the new word to a legal consequence. Alex upstages them both. He demonstrates that he is already familiar with the general idea of plagiarism and that he understands the concept of copyright, as well.
Williams family members also often casually interweave scientific terms or medical terms into their daily conversations. When a field-worker accompanying Alex to the soccer field comments on the boy’s deep cough, Alex nonchalantly remarks, “I’m allergic to grass,” and then adds, “Yeah. And leaf mold,” thereby using a specialized term. The parents also see it to be important to develop their son’s nascent political awareness. The African American Baptist church they attend each Sunday includes sermons on social and political issues such as the national debt, welfare policies, and poverty programs. They also discuss political issues at home with him over the dinner table, including events in the national news, such as destructive fires set in African American churches in the South.
Finally, we observed Alex and his parents, as well as other middle-class families, using reasoning and negotiation to achieve specific ends. For example, rather than order or direct children, middle-class parents would offer children “choices” for decisions. But then, these parents would unobtrusively guide their children toward the choice that they thought was preferable. In choosing fast food or in choosing a book for a summer reading list, for example, Ms. Williams would ask Alexander what he wanted, but then would suggest one or two options as the most appropriate. Often, when Alexander felt he was making his own decisions, he was in fact following his mother’s suggestions.
Overall, a commitment to a strategy of concerted cultivation is sometimes physically and