Unequal Childhoods - Annette Lareau [96]
(Jane and Jill do some serious yelling downstairs for about ten minutes.):
JANE: You fucking bitch! You steal Harold’s clothes, huh?
JILL: Shut up, Jane.
JANE: Nobody but you around here go stealin’ from my kids! I’m about to get you upside the fuckin’ head!
JILL: I ain’t fuckin’ stealin’ from you! Don’t fuckin’ accuse me!
JANE: . . . I’m sick of your stupid fuckin’ games. I’m gonna get me a stick and you’re gonna get out before I fuck you up!
JILL: Nobody puttin’ me the fuck out!
In the middle of this, Alexis is hollering from the bathroom that she needs toilet paper. Ms. McAllister leaves, goes to a neighbor’s house and borrows a roll. She returns with a large wooden stick.
JANE: I got me a stick now! You fuckin’ hear?!
(Jill doesn’t answer.)
JANE (yelling): You gettin’ the fuck out! . . .
There’s a lull as Jane searches [for Harold’s missing shirts]. Lori turns to me (I’ve slowly come downstairs as I heard the yelling from Lori’s room; now I stand against the banister wall of the living room). Lori (to me): “Her’s no excuse for it.” She says this with her head down; she looks so sad, like she might cry. Alexis is standing on the second step of the stairs, saying to me: “They always do this. The only thing is, it makes me scared.”18 She looks sad.
The density of the housing project also permits neighbors to hear the conflict and a small group gathers outside. The conflict escalates when Keith arrives home. He and Jill have a loud (physical) entanglement, but by this time the children and the field-worker have left the apartment and gone to the basketball court. They return a little later and sweep up the glass and move the broken furniture to the street as per an order issued by Ms. McAllister.19
This series of events was painful for all involved. Ms. McAllister was embarrassed that the field-worker witnessed the fight. She knew that it had been a frightening experience and wished it could have been avoided.20 But, as she explains to me a few days later, she felt she had little choice. If she is to provide her children with a “home” and not just a “house,” she could not allow her sister to stay.
I ask her, “Is she going to be moving?” She says firmly, “She is going to go.” I say, “It is hard on your nerves.” She says, “This is a house but it got to be a home.”
I say, “Where will she go?” She shakes her head (to indicate she doesn’t know). She says, “The kids won’t come in here when she is here.” She asks me, “Did you ever notice that?” I nod slowly. She says, “I got to make this a home not a house.”
EMERGING SIGNS OF CONSTRAINT
The McAllisters, like other poor and working-class families, display caution and at times distrust toward individuals in positions of authority in dominant institutions. This approach contributes to very different interactions between family members and institutional representatives as compared to those experienced by middle-class families.
At a parent-teacher conference, for example, Ms. McAllister (who is a high school graduate) seems subdued. The gregarious and outgoing nature she displays at home is hidden in this setting. She sits hunched over in the chair and she keeps her jacket zipped up. She is very quiet. When the teacher reports that Harold has not been turning in his homework, Ms. McAllister clearly is flabbergasted, but all she says is, “He did it at home.” She does not follow up with