Differences in educational resources are important as well. Middle-class parents’ superior levels of education gave them larger vocabularies and more knowledge. More education facilitated concerted cultivation, particularly with respect to interventions in institutions outside the home. As I have shown, poor and working-class parents had difficulty understanding key terms bantered about by professionals, such as “tetanus shot” or “cavity.” Middle-class parents’ educational backgrounds also gave them the confidence to criticize educational professionals and intervene in school matters. For working-class and poor parents, educators were social superiors. For middle-class parents, they were equals or subordinates. In addition, research indicates that middle-class parents tend to be more sensitive to shifts in child-rearing standards than do working-class parents, probably because middle-class parents tend to be more attuned to the advice of professionals.28
Others have shown that parents’ occupations and working conditions, particularly the complexity of their work, influence important aspects of their child-rearing beliefs.29 In this study, there were not only suggestions that parents’ work mattered, but also signs that the experience of adulthood itself influenced how individuals conceived of childhood. Middle-class parents, spared severe economic struggles, often were preoccupied with the pleasures and difficulties of their work lives.30 They tended to view childhood as an opportunity for play, but also as a chance to develop talents and skills that could be valuable in the self-actualization processes that take place in adulthood. Mr. Tallinger, for example, saw implications for the world of work in his assessment of the value of sports for Garrett, noting that playing soccer taught his son to be “hard nosed” and “competitive.” Ms. Williams, similarly, mentioned the value of Alexander learning to work with others on a team. Middle-class parents were very aware of the “declining fortunes” of the middle class and of the country as a whole at the close of the twentieth century. They worried about their own economic futures and those of their children.31 This uncertainty made them feel it was important that children be developed in a variety of ways in order to enhance their future possibilities.
The experiences and concerns that shaped the views of the working-class and poor parents had little in common with those of the middle-class parents. For working-class families, it was the deadening quality of work and the press of economic shortages that defined their experience of adulthood and influenced their vision of childhood. For poor families, it was dependence on public assistance and severe economic shortages that most affected their views about adulthood and childhood. Working-class and poor families had many more worries about basic issues: how to endure food shortages, get children to doctors despite a lack of reliable transportation, purchase clothing, and manage other life necessities. Thinking back over their childhoods, these adults acknowledged periods of hardship but also recalled times without the kinds of worries that troubled them at present. Many appeared to want their own youngsters to spend their time being happy and relaxed. There would be plenty of time for their children to face the burdens of life when they reached adulthood. In summary, then, parents’ conceptions of adulthood and childhood appeared to be closely connected to their lived experiences. The factors influencing parents’ child-rearing strategies thus seem to go beyond the role of education per se to encompass these adults’ occupational and economic experiences as well.
In fact, it was the interweaving of life experiences and resources, including parents’ economic resources, occupational conditions, and educational backgrounds, that seemed to be most important in leading middle-class parents to engage in concerted cultivation and working-class and poor families to engage in the accomplishment of natural growth. Still, the structural location of families did not determine their child-rearing practices. The agency of actors and the indeterminacy of social life are inevitable. It is important to keep in mind this “relative autonomy” of individuals in the enactment of social structural position and biographical outcomes.32
Aside from economic and social resources, there are other factors that might influence child-rearing practices by social class. Indeed, one might imagine two different scenarios: if the resources of the poor and working-class families were transformed overnight so that they equaled those of the middle-class families, would their cultural logic of child rearing shift as well? Or are there cultural attitudes and beliefs that are somewhat independent of economic and social resources that are influencing parents’ practices here? Unfortunately, the size and scope of this study do not permit a clear answer to this question. On the one hand, some poor and working-class parents reported that they wanted their children to have more organized activities, expressed a belief in the importance of listening to children, and felt it was important for them as parents to play an active role in their children’s schooling. In these families, the parents’ practices appeared to be directly limited by their resources. On the other hand, in other families, parents did not view children’s participation in activities as particularly important. Ms. Taylor, for example, “prayed” that Tyrec would not want to play football again; she did not see his involvement in the sport as helping him in any special way.
Other parents were even more dubious. For example, during the parent interviews, the research assistants and I described the real-life schedules of two children (using data from the twelve families we were observing). One schedule was similar to that of Alexander Williams: restricted television, required reading, and many organized activities, including piano lessons (for analytical purposes, the child was described as disliking his piano lessons and not being permitted to quit, neither of which was true for Alexander). Some working-class and poor parents found this scenario unappealing.33 One white, poor mother complained:
I think he, I think, uh, I think he wants more. I think he doesn’t enjoy doing what he’s doing half of the time (light laughter). I think his parents are too strict. And he’s not a child (laughter).
In addition, even parents who remarked that this kind of schedule would pay off “job-wise” when the child was an adult, still expressed serious reservations, as these comments (each from different interviews) show:
“I think he is a sad kid.”
“He must be dead-dog tired.”
“Unless you’re planning on him being Liberace as far as piano . . . I think it is a waste of money . . . I think he is cutting himself kind of short. He’s not being involved with anything as far as friends.”
Thus, the belief systems of working-class and poor parents were mixed: some longed for a schedule of organized activities for their children; others did not. Still, there were a few indications that if parents’ economic and social resources were to change, their cultural practices would shift as well. A number of middle-class children in the study had parents who were upwardly mobile. The parents were middle class, but the children’s grandparents were poor or working class. In some cases, these grandparents objected to the child-rearing practices associated with concerted cultivation. They were bewildered by their grandchildren’s hectic schedules of organized activities, outraged that the parents would reason with the children instead of giving them clear directives, and awed by the intensive involvement of mothers in the children’s schooling. The small number of cases limits generalizing, but the evidence does suggest that it is economic and social resources that are key in shaping child-rearing practices; as parents’ own social class position shifts, so do their cultural beliefs and practices in child rearing. Untangling the effects of material and cultural resources on parents and children’s choices is beyond the scope of this study. These two forces are inextricably interwoven in daily life.