Annette Lareau Unequal Childhood

Annette Lareau’s book, Unequal Childhood: Class, Race, and Family Life, explores how social and racial factors can influence the experiences in one’s childhood. The differences in childhood experiences as a result of social class and race circumstances creates unequal childhoods. Lareau’s study on 12 families, in both working and middle classes, reveals why these factors are relevant to various parenting styles and unequal childhoods. Childhoods are unequal because of the different experiences encountered based on their family’s social class. Social class refers to the parents’ income, occupation, and level of education, as well as where that family lives. Lareau’s observations found significant differences in the lives of children raised …show more content…
She calls their parenting style the accomplishment of natural growth. These parents were not as involved in the development of their children as middle-class parents were. Because of their financial situations, working- class parents were not able to enroll their children into extracurricular activities and organizations. The children spent more time on their own, figuring things out for themselves. These children played outside more with friends from school and down the street and were ultimately more responsible for handling themselves. Because many of these parents didn’t push the children to do their school work, children in poor and working-class families tended to experience more challenges in the classroom. Despite the lack of resources, working- class families generally spend more time together and draw closer together because of their …show more content…
For example, two boys can be the same race with the same god- given talents, and end up in two different worlds because of their upbringing. A child being raised by middle-class parents are given many more opportunities for success than those in working- class families. The benefits of concerted cultivation like the push for success, discipline, and individualism are priceless; however, difficulties arise for those that do not receive the opportunities that come from that style. Lareau defines two words that also explain how inequalities are produced in childhoods: emergent entitlement and emergent constraint. Middle- class children experience emergent entitlement which allows them to be unique individuals who feel like they can chase their dreams and accomplish their goals. Working class children experience emergent constraint which makes them feel less confident in believing there is more out there for them. Emergent constraint is a dangerous mentality to have, and though it is not the child’s fault, it still steers how they move forward in