Unequal childhoods: In case being a kid isn't hard enough

 In "Unequal Childhoods", Annette Lareau tried, like many other authors, to capture the texture of inequality in America. Unlike many of the other books and movies I've covered over the course of my semester, Lareu's findings are not racially driven. Instead, she describes how child-rearing techniques in upper-middle-class homes differ from those in working-class and poor homes, and what this means for the prospects of the kids inside each type of home life. To her, class is more important than race, even though the white race tended to be more privileged to be in the middle class. Lareau dispels the theories that society is fundamentally open (ex. the American dream) or that disparities exist in America but can have different "degrees of difference". She states that class always matters. Period.


For me, her book's most meaningful point point is you can't claim that good parents raise successful kids and bad parents raise unsuccessful ones. For children, reality is much more complicated than that cut-and-dried philosophy.


Looking at upper-middle-class homes, Lareau describes a parenting style that many of the student's in my college honors class claimed to be brought up it. This style is called concerted cultivation. It involves enrolling kids in vast numbers of adult-supervised activities and driving them from place to place. Parents are deeply involved in all aspects of their children's lives, from social activies to sports and classwork assignments. They make "concerted efforts" to provide learning experiences in every situation that arises, and rarely leave children to their own devices. Now, this method of "helicopter parenting" works great for me with my puppy, who has a bladder the size of a thimble and takes on rubber-protected furniture as a personal chewing challenge, but I personally don't know if this same method is the best for raising children. Kids are much better at finding productive ways to amuse themselves than bored puppies, and I think they  should be allowed the chance to prove it. 

If you couldn't tell, concerted cultivation is not the type of background I was brought up in. It is also certainly not the lifestyle I encounter when I'm helping or tutoring minority children. But, that isn't to say studies don't prove it is successful. Check out this link from The Sydney Morning Herald, which says research proves that busy children are shown to do better "in life".
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2008/09/28/kids_wideweb__470x310,2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.smh.com.au/news/life--style-home/busy-children-shown-to-do-better/2008/09/28/1222540247454.html&usg=__m60BI1AG2dowe2EMWf3GCCvlak4=&h=310&w=470&sz=63&hl=en&start=2&sig2=MJQyT_vjE40ia9lCLKvR1Q&zoom=1&tbnid=n2ZBCW5zsgwDEM:&tbnh=85&tbnw=129&ei=7pN3T7v-JIGNgwfx2MGJDw&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dbusy%2Bchildren%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Den%26authuser%3D0%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1



Concerted cultivation, or the lifestyle of the well-off, is without-a-doubt the better of the two methods in preparing children for the work force. I agree with Lareau's statement that:


This kind of training developed middle-class children a sense of entitlement. They felt they had a right to weigh in with an opinion, to make special requests, to pass judgment on others, and to offer advice to adults. They expected to receive attention and to be taken very seriously. It is important to recognize that these advantages and entitlements are historically specific…. They are highly effective strategies in the United States today precisely because our society places a premium on assertive, individualised actions executed by persons who command skills in reasoning and negotiation.


Doesn't that sound like a manager or top-salary wage earner to you?


Working-class child-rearing is different, Lareau writes. These children, often minorities, were not as well prepared for the world of organizations and adulthood. They used the "natural growth" method and there was much less talk in the working-class homes. Parents were more likely to issue brusque orders without not give explanations or welcoming discussion. 


Lareau argued that these children, like their parents, were easily intimidated by and pushed around by verbally dexterous teachers and doctors. Middle-class kids felt entitled to individual treatment when entering the wider world, but working-class kids felt constrained and tongue-tied. This prepared middle-class children for upper management positions better than all of the tutoring or academic formal education in the world could. Lower-class children missed that informal education opportunity. 


But I was raised largely using the natural growth method! Surely it can't be all bad! It isn't, in fact, the benefits of a natural growth method are, as quoted by Lareau:

The parents… organised their children’s lives so they spent more time in and around the home, in informal play with peers, siblings, and cousins. As a result, the children had more autonomy regarding leisure time and more opportunities for child initiated play. They were also more responsible for their lives outside the home.

Also:
They played outside, creating their own games… They did not complain of being bored…also appeared to have boundless energy. They did not have the exhaustion that we saw in middle-class children of the same age.


It is important to me that these distinctions are not black and white. Yes, middle class children raised with cultivation might do better in the long run, but they may not have the creativity the natural growth kids fostered when entertaining themselves. Converesly, the children who were so tired and scheduled early on in life can keep up with vigorous career demands, fear no one, and have excellent time management skills. After all, Lareau observed that in both types of families: 
There were episodes of laughter, emotional connection, and happiness as well as quiet comforts in every family...moments of connection seemed deeply meaningful to both children and parents in all social classes, even as the take different shape by social class, in terms of language, activity, and character. 


The only thing that  surprised me about this book, and the ensuing class discussion, was that not much emphasis was placed on how a healthy mix of the two methods should be the ideal to strive for. Seriously? No tips on better parenting? Was the book just to point out these inequalities without offering a solution? Somehow the other authors I've been reading prepared me for a more enlightening ending.  I expected a bit more of a merging of the cultures, and was disappointed that Lareau merely placed people in these categories, said parents can raise children in whichever category they want, and didn't give us much best practice advice. 


The children Lareau describes in her book were playful 10-year-olds. Now they're probably in their early 20's, and their destinies might be just as you'd have predicted. The perhaps overprogrammed middle-class kids got into good colleges and are heading for careers as doctors and other professionals. The working-class kids are not doing well. They're probably housecleaners or lower-level blue collar workers and tradesmen. But, according to Lareau, the core issue is that today's rich don't exploit the poor; they just outcompete them. No one is being held back from excelling, but lower-class culture just isn't preparing its children for the rigorous demands of the workforce. Maybe that was the point, a calling out, or challenge to parents to find ways to make their children become the new class of workplace competition. 

Watching documentaries such as "Waging a Living" and looking at statistics such as the one above can be heartbreaking. Watching the "working poor" do overtime while trying to make ends meet for their families and selves should make you want to cry out for the unfairness of it all. Throughout the documentary, all these minimum wage workers wanted was an increased wage so they could keep up with the actual living wage in the areas where they lived. They celebrated when unions received a 25 cent raise, and said over and over again how much easier their lives would be if their minimum wage was increased to match the actual living wage.

I don't think these low-income workers were lazy, or stupid, or below me in any way, shape or form, but I'm also not sure if they're entitled to increased wages across the board. Hard work should lead to raises, yes, the American dream teaches us that. But if the bottom-rung pay scale was legally raised, I'm not sure raising the minimum wage wouldn't be a very terrible idea.

Please understand, I am a mass communication student. I don't follow economical strategies closely, and haven't worked for minimum wage since I was 16. Chances are that my opinions are hugely wrong and I'm missing a large part of the equation. But when I look at statistics that come with minimum wage, I can't help but think there must be another, more productive way to help than just by paying everyone more.  

In a free market, demand is always a function of price. The higher the price, the lower the demand. This rule applies to both prices and wages. When employers evaluate their labor and capital needs, cost is a primary factor. If the cost of hiring low-skilled workers rises with minimum wage requirements, jobs will be lost, and the company will find ways to replace them. I can compare this to when my hot water heater started leaking. There me and my roommates were, ankle deep in water, working with our apartment repairmen to call around and find the cheapest handyman we could. Once we found that everyone's rates were too high, they all lost our business. Our apartment repairman a grabbed a wrench, plugged up a hole, replaced a wire, and prayed to God that would fix the leak. Had the minimum rate been lower, one of those handymen in the phone book would have made a profit. Instead, while they had the potential to make more, they all ended up losing the job.

Another angle to consider, doesn't an employee need to know that an employee's productivity will exceed the cost of hiring and paying them? If an unskilled worker only gives, let's say, $6 an hour in productivity, the company will hire them if their pay is less than $6 an hour, but if minimum wage is set at $7 an hour, the company would not be able to hire that person, so they would be legally unemployable if minimum wage increased. Jobs would only remain available to skilled workers capable of more productive output. 

Where does that put low-skilled workers, such as teens and uneducated workers? Priced out of the market. That's why there aren't any more jobs such as movie ushers or bag boys that carry your groceries to your car. Employers can't make a profit off of them if they have to pay higher wages, so those people's jobs are cut out of the system thanks to minimum wage raises. They can't achieve their American dream by working hard to earn a decent life if they can't even start on the bottom rungs of the ladder to success. This makes sense: If all low-wage employees are pooled into a single wage bracket, developing employees will not receive crucial training, because the jobs will go to people who can already perform the work without training. Thus, the developing employees will enjoy fewer advancement opportunities, if they can even find a job at all.

Because the minimum wage prevents so many young people, and a disproportionate number of minorities, from getting entry-level jobs, it doesn't seem feasible to raise the rates any higher. If minimum wage is set too high, other prices for commodities should rise, and those people who can't break into the job market will never develop the skills necessary for higher-paying jobs. This is where the government aid steps in.  While the documentary "Waging a Living" successfully shows that it is almost impossible to support a family on minimum wage, I don't think that's what minimum wage was designed to do anyway. Contrary to the statements of its advocates, fewer and fewer low-wage employees are supporting a family on the minimum wage, with only 9 percent of low-wage employees actually supporting a poor family. The 16-year-old pizza delivery boy should not be making enough money to support his family. Minimum wage is meant to be used as a starting point, and for those who get caught in the minimum wage cycle have other means of government aid to help.

Therefore, effective anti-poverty programs should concentrate on family income and not wages. While most working poor families will not receive any benefit from an increase in minimum wage , the vast majority would receive a benefit from increases in the generosity of federal and state programs. These programs provide targeted assistance to the low-income working families so often cited in support of minimum wage increases—the same families that receive a minority of the benefits from a wage increase.