Unequal Childhoods - Annette Lareau [86]
As this field note suggests, Harold’s restraint was disconcerting after so many observations of working-class and middle-class children who routinely ask their parents to purchase items for them.
But Harold does not live a life of total deprivation. Ms. McAllister is committed to meeting her children’s basic needs, and, whenever possible, supplying them with “extras.” For example, the field-workers noted occasions when she gave the children money to buy a soda or a bag of chips at a store near the housing project. Ms. McAllister sees herself as a very capable mother. Like Alexander Williams’s mother, she wants her children to be successful and happy. She strives to provide a strong, positive influence in their lives (unlike the drug-addicted mothers in the project), but she views her role as a parent very differently from the way Ms. Williams views hers. In the McAllister family, as in other poor and working-class families, a parent’s key responsibility lies in providing important physical care for children, offering clothing and shelter, teaching the difference between right and wrong, and providing comfort. In all of this, language plays an important, practical role. Unlike Ms. Williams, Ms. McAllister does not continuously attempt to enrich Harold’s vocabulary, cultivate his verbal (or physical) talents, cajole him, or attempt to persuade him to act in particular ways. When Harold complains, as in the opening of the chapter, that his teacher “lies,” his mother listens quietly and reminds him of a teacher she did like, but unlike Ms. Williams she does not have her son elaborate. Ms. McAllister often issues short, clear directives and she expects prompt, respectful compliance. Harold rarely challenges any directive issued by an adult, nor does he try to reason or negotiate with either of his parents. The strong, clear boundaries Ms. McAllister draws between adults and children do not, however, lead her to tightly control Harold’s activities. He and the other children are free to play, watch TV, and spend time with their nearby friends without specifically consulting her. In contrast to middle-class children’s worlds, where children’s activities often supplant kinship time, extended family networks play a very important role among the McAllisters.
These differences in parenting, especially language use, affect the children’s lives both outside and inside the home. The emerging sense of entitlement that is apparent when Alexander Williams visits the doctor, for example, is shaped by his ability to use language to control how the doctor perceives him. Alex is at ease with adults (so much so that he casually interrupts the doctor); he visits the doctor often enough to be familiar with the routines; and since he is used to being questioned and having his answers attended to, he supplies information fluidly. It is different when Harold goes to a clinic for a physical for Bible camp. Mistrust of doctors and other professionals and lack of familiarity with the practices and terminology of health-care professionals combine to tongue-tie his mother and constrain him. Harold has neither the language nor conversational skills that Alexander takes for granted. He is unfamiliar with questioning and probing, and he has no experience making special demands of persons in authority. The result is an emerging sense of constraint. The positive aspects of Harold’s upbringing—the ease he displays with his peers, his resourcefulness in creating games and organizing his own time, his respectful attitude toward adults, his deep connection to family members—are rendered nearly invisible in the “real world” of social institutions. Educators, health-care professionals, employers, and others accept (and help to reproduce) an ideology that values, among