Unequal Childhoods Lareau Analysis

Annette Lareau, in her book “Unequal Childhoods”, explains her belief that parents from different social classes raise their children in different ways. She does this through her observations and studies with select families from upper middle class to the poor lower class. She states that the working and lower class families use a method that she refers to as “accomplishment of natural growth”. From my experience, Annette Lareau’s thesis was accurate as I have grown up in a working class family and am now raising my children in a working class and I find I can confirm many of her findings.
Lareau argues that, the accomplishment of natural growth, parenting style of our lower class families, leads to distrust of authority figures and institutional …show more content…
My mother was a single parent for the vast majority of my childhood as my father was in and out of our lives due to circumstances I do not wish to disclose. I remember days when I would get off of school and then go out, not returning home till after the streetlights came on and my mother never seemed to care. Also, much like Harold McAllister, my uncles and cousins would often be around. My two siblings and I were not afforded very many after school activities, not because they weren’t allowed but because as a single parent my mother just couldn’t afford it. Lareau explains how working class families didn’t engage in family discussions at the dinner table. Often times we ate irregular meals as my mother never worked a steady shift, and as a result was often not home to sit down to dinner with us. According to Steinberg (1996) working class children are more self-reliant, persistent, and socially poised, and have lower self-esteem. Children of lower class families have clear boundaries between adults and children, according to Lareau. This is easy to see as most working class children are left to fend for themselves so-to-speak while parents are working or attending other tasks for their family’s