Unequal Childhoods - Annette Lareau [77]
The clearing of throats could be heard behind us. Christina did not pay any attention to it. “Mom,” (Alex, shaking his head) “you can’t. You promised that you would not use your credit card.” Christina had put her checkbook away and was now digging in her wallet, retrieving a credit card. Alex: “Let’s get Dad’s.” Christina looked at Alex, then smiled. She put her card back in the holder. Speaking to the salesperson, she said, “Can you hold the sled for me?” . . . When we approached the door, the woman behind the counter asked, “You’ll be right back?” Christina pointed in the direction of the car as she said, “I’m just going to the car and get my husband’s credit card.” Christina smiled as she left. . . . (I was upset with Christina. This woman was patronizing her.)
Exiting, Ms. Williams and the field-worker discuss the possibility of racism without ever explicitly using the term:
We walked out of the store. I asked Christina, “What did you think that was about? Why didn’t she take the check?” Christina, while looking across the street to where Terry was once parked, said nonchalantly, “I don’t think it was like that. . . . I can understand why she did not want to accept a check. I have a friend [who told me that] someone had written fifteen thousand dollars’ worth of bad money orders.” Alex: “How much? Fifteen hundred dollars?” Christina, looking around for Terry, said, “Fifteen thousand. Ten times more than fifteen hundred.”12 (During this conversation, Mr. Williams pulls up in front of the store. Alex gets one of his father’s credit cards and he, his mother, and the field-worker go back into the store and finish the transaction.)13
As the field-worker’s comments make clear, others likely would have perceived the clerk’s actions as a racially based insult.14 Ms. Williams did not. Equally important, she offered an alternative explanation that distracted her son. Thus, Alex seemed to process the events in the hardware store as nothing more than a temporary delay in the purchase of the sled he wanted. As the next section shows, Ms. Williams brings the same careful attention to other aspects of her son’s life as she devotes to the dynamics of race. Mr. Williams, too, takes an active, though less sustained, role in “developing Alexander.”
EMERGING SIGNS OF ENTITLEMENT
In interactions with professionals, the Williamses, like some other middle-class parents in the study, seem relaxed and communicative. They want Alex to feel this way too, so they teach him how to be an informed, assertive client. On one hot summer afternoon, Ms. Williams uses a doctor visit as an opportunity for this kind of instruction. During the drive to the doctor’s office, the field-worker listens as Ms. Williams prepares Alexander to be assertive during his regular checkup:
As we enter Park Lane, [Christina] says quietly to Alex, “Alexander, you should be thinking of questions you might want to ask the doctor. You can ask him anything you want. Don’t be shy. You can ask anything.” Alex thinks for a minute, then says, “I have some bumps under my arms from my deodorant.” Christina: “Really? You mean from your new deodorant?” Alex: “Yes.” Christina: “Well, you should ask the doctor.”
Alex’s mother is teaching him that he has the right to speak up (e.g., “don’t be shy”; “you can ask anything”). Most important, she is role modeling the idea that he should prepare for an encounter with a person in a position of authority by gathering his thoughts ahead of time. During the office visit, both mother and son have the opportunity to activate the class resources that were evident during the conversation in the car.
The doctor, a jovial white man in his late thirties or early forties, enters the examination room and announces that he will begin by going through “the routine questions.” When he notes that Alexander is in the ninety-fifth percentile in height, Alex interrupts him.
ALEX: I’m in the what?
DOCTOR: It means that you’re taller than more than ninety-five out of a hundred young men when