There were advantages to this cultural logic of child rearing. For parents, there was less labor and a more leisurely pace than in middle-class homes. Children’s activities did not control their parents’ time. Weekday evenings and weekends were not spent rushing to and from children’s events. Nor did parents have to spend scarce resources on enrolling children in activities. Children benefited too. They appeared to be more relaxed as well as more vibrant. They were not as tired. They did not seem staid or bored. When they were playing, they were fully engaged in the process; it seemed to be truly fun to them. In addition, since they were usually in control of their own play, children could shift to a new game when they felt like it—which was often. Children also were spared school-like experiences at home, with their parents relentlessly pushing their educational development, a pattern that we next see with Alexander Williams.
PART II
Language Use
WORDS ARE PART AND PARCEL of the human experience. Yet there are important variations in the social patterns of speech. Some researchers, notably Shirley Brice Heath, have found that parents differ in whether they treat young children (who cannot yet talk) as potential conversation partners. Some mothers interact with their infants as if they were engaged in a conversation: “There, there, doesn’t that feel better now?” Pause. “Are you ready for your nap?” Pause. The young children are not capable of answering at this point in their lives, but as they become able to, they will come to view themselves as conversation partners for adults. In other families, however, Heath found that parents talked about children but did not behave as if infants and young children are viable conversation partners. Heath argues that these different strategies of sociolinguistic style have important implications for children’s schooling.1
In this section, I show that the children in the families being studied were also taught to use language differently. Some families—notably the Black middle-class (albeit wealthy) family of Alexander Williams—use language as an end in and of itself. They enjoy words for their own sake, ascribing an intrinsic pleasure to them. They discuss alternate meanings of words. The parents use language as the key mechanism of discipline. This approach often leads to extensive negotiation, bargaining, and whining in the course of daily family life. But it also leads Alexander to acquire a large vocabulary and to be adroit at verbal interaction. For other families, and notably Harold McAllister’s Black poor family, language is used in a more functional fashion. Family members are able to communicate their preferences very clearly, as when Harold firmly rejects the idea of a peach-colored towel when shopping with his father, but they use many fewer words to do so. Rather than extensive negotiation, these parents use directives and, when necessary, threats of physical punishment. One consequence of this is that the children we observed rarely, if ever, talked back to adults. Whining, which was pervasive in middle-class homes, was rare in working-class and poor ones. Still, since linguistic interaction often builds vocabulary and other important reading skills, there was an unequal educational benefit for children from the different approaches to language in the home. Working-class and poor children also gained less experience in negotiating with adults, skills that might be useful in institutional encounters in their future.
CHAPTER 6
Developing a Child:
Alexander Williams
As we enter Park Lane, [Ms. Williams] 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.” (Mom:) “Really? You mean from your new deodorant?” Alex: “Yes.” [Ms. Williams:] “Well, you should ask the doctor.”
In a quiet street in a largely Black, middle-class neighborhood in a major northeastern city stand large, old, stone houses with expansive porches and sweeping lawns. Alexander Williams lives in one such six-bedroom home. He is the only child of a middle-class African American couple. His parents, Christina Nile and Terry Williams, met when they were students at a small, predominantly white, religious college in the South. They had been married ten years before Alexander was born. Alexander’s mother uses her maiden name, Christina Nile, at work, but she goes by Mrs. Williams at church. A tall woman with honey-colored skin, freckles, and long, black wavy hair, Ms. Williams is positive, bubbly, and energetic. She has a master’s degree in liberal arts from an elite college and is a high-level manager in a major corporation. She has a corner office with a view, a personal secretary, and job responsibilities that include overseeing offices across the nation. She finds it hard to leave her office by six, since “that is when the West Coast is just getting warmed up.” She knows she works fewer hours than she would if she didn’t have Alexander. Although she tries to limit her travel to long days, she has an overnight trip at least once a month.
Alexander’s father, Terry Williams, is a tall, thin man, who stands very straight and has a serious demeanor. During the week, he is usually dressed in a formal dark suit, with a crisply ironed white shirt and a conservative tie. During family car trips, or while waiting for Alexander’s events to begin, he is often absorbed by the newspaper, but he will occasionally join in the conversation and make wry jokes. He often calls Alex “Handsome” and ruffles his son’s hair affectionately. Mr. Williams earned his J.D. degree from a well-regarded private university. A trial lawyer in a small firm, Mr. Williams works long hours handling (primarily) medical malpractice cases. Preparing these cases keeps him busy from five in the morning until midnight for two weeks each month. The other two weeks, he works until around 6 P.M.
The family, as Mr. Williams says, does not lack “creature comforts.” Together, Mr. and Ms. Williams earn more than $200,000 annually. They rarely discuss money with their son; we never heard either parent say something was “too expensive.” Their large, comfortable home is worth $150,000 in 1995; they drive a new beige Lexus; they have computers and portable phones; their son attends a private school. The Williamses’ home is immaculately kept and expensively furnished. In the formal dining room, a long wooden table and tall, straight-backed chairs rest on a thick Oriental rug. A matching buffet stands nearby. The formal living room is always neat though rarely used, except for piano practice. The family spends most of its time in the large kitchen. They also sometimes sit in an upstairs family room decorated in a “country” theme. There are blue-and-white checked wingback chairs and a love seat, wreaths, wooden cats, an armoire-style entertainment center, and paintings with African and African American themes. The room also has a television. Occasionally Mr. Williams watches a basketball game; sometimes, the family watches The Cosby Show or Star Trek together.
Alexander is a tall, thin boy—a smaller edition of his father—with a winsome smile and a charming manner. He is active and inquisitive. One Saturday afternoon, for example, while the adults talk, he twirls around the kitchen. He keeps his hands on his stomach and pushes out the shirt of his soccer uniform as he circles. On another occasion, after his mother drops him off at the house and continues on to park the car, Alex hops off the steps and jumps up in the air, trying to see through the windows of the house. He is also verbally playful, initiating jokes and bantering with his parents. His mother, who stresses the importance of children being “exposed” to various experiences, is pleased with Alexander’s approach to life: