Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life

Working-class and poor parents issue many more directives to their children, and in some households, place more emphasis on physical discipline than do middle-class parents. Among white and black working-class and poor families, childrearing strategies emphasize the "accomplishment of natural growth." All of the middle-class families engaged in extensive reasoning with their children, asking questions, probing assertions, and listening to answers. Similar patterns appeared in interviews and observations with other African American middle-class families. While in working-class and poor families, children are granted autonomy to make their own way in organizations, in the middle-class homes, most aspects of the children's lives are subject to their mother's ongoing scrutiny. Class position influences critical aspects of family life: time use, language use, and kin ties. Working-class and middle-class mothers may express beliefs that reflect a similar notion of "intensive mothering," but their behavior is quite different.