Class Differences in Child-Rearing Are on the Rise
Claire Cain Miller @clairecm DEC. 17, 2015
The lives of children from rich and poor American families look more
different than they have in decades.
Well-off families are ruled by calendars, with children enrolled in ballet,
soccer and after-school programs, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
There are usually two parents, who spend a lot of time reading to children and
worrying about their anxiety levels and hectic schedules.
In poor families, however, children tend to spend their time at home or
with extended family, the survey found. They are more likely to grow up in
neighborhoods that their parents say aren’t great for raising children, and
their parents worry about them getting shot, beaten up or in trouble with the
law.
The class differences in child rearing are growing, researchers say — a
symptom of widening inequality with far-reaching consequences. Different
upbringings set children on different paths and can deepen socioeconomic
divisions, especially because education is strongly linked to earnings. Children
grow up learning the skills to succeed in their socioeconomic stratum, but not
necessarily others.
“Early childhood experiences can be very consequential for children’s
long-term social, emotional and cognitive development,” said Sean F. Reardon,
professor of poverty and inequality in education at Stanford University. “And
because those influence educational success and later earnings, early childhood
experiences cast a lifelong shadow.”
The cycle continues: Poorer parents have less time and fewer resources to
invest in their children, which can leave children less prepared for school and
work, which leads to lower earnings.
American parents want similar things for their children, the Pew report and
past research have found: for them to be healthy and happy, honest and ethical,
caring and compassionate. There is no best parenting style or philosophy,
researchers say, and across income groups, 92 percent of parents say they are
doing a good job at raising their children.
Yet they are doing it quite differently.
Middle-class and higher-income parents see their children as projects in
need of careful cultivation, says Annette Lareau, a University of Pennsylvania
sociologist whose groundbreaking research on the topic was published in her book
“Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race and Family Life.” They try to develop their
skills through close supervision and organized activities, and teach children to
question authority figures and navigate elite institutions.
Working-class parents, meanwhile, believe their children will naturally
thrive, and give them far greater independence and time for free play. They are
taught to be compliant and deferential to adults.
There are benefits to both approaches. Working-class children are happier,
more independent, whine less and are closer with family members, Ms. Lareau
found. Higher-income children are more likely to declare boredom and expect
their parents to solve their problems.
Yet later on, the more affluent children end up in college and en route to
the middle class, while working-class children tend to struggle. Children from
higher-income families are likely to have the skills to navigate bureaucracies
and succeed in schools and workplaces, Ms. Lareau said.
“Do all parents want the most success for their children? Absolutely,” she
said. “Do some strategies give children more advantages than others in
institutions? Probably they do. Will parents be damaging children if they have
one fewer organized activity? No, I really doubt it.”
Social scientists say the differences arise in part because low-income
parents have less money to spend on music class or preschool, and less flexible
schedules to take children to museums or attend school events.
Extracurricular activities epitomize the differences in child rearing in
the Pew survey, which was of a nationally representative sample of 1,807
parents. Of families earning more than $75,000 a year, 84 percent say their
children have participated in organized sports over the past year, 64 percent
have done volunteer work and 62 percent have taken lessons in music, dance or
art. Of families earning less than $30,000, 59 percent of children have done
sports, 37 percent have volunteered and 41 percent have taken arts classes.
Especially in affluent families, children start young. Nearly half of
high-earning, college-graduate parents enrolled their children in arts classes
before they were 5, compared with one-fifth of low-income, less-educated
parents.
Nonetheless, 20 percent of well-off parents say their children’s schedules
are too hectic, compared with 8 percent of poorer parents.
Another example is reading aloud, which studies have shown gives children
bigger vocabularies and better reading comprehension in school. Seventy-one
percent of parents with a college degree say they do it every day, compared with
33 percent of those with a high school diploma or less, Pew found. White parents
are more likely than others to read to their children daily, as are married
parents.
Most affluent parents enroll their children in preschool or day care, while
low-income parents are more likely to depend on family members.
Discipline techniques vary by education level: 8 percent of those with a
postgraduate degree say they often spank their children, compared with 22
percent of those with a high school degree or less.
The survey also probed attitudes and anxieties. Interestingly, parents’
attitudes toward education do not seem to reflect their own educational
background as much as a belief in the importance of education for upward
mobility.
Most American parents say they are not concerned about their children’s
grades as long as they work hard. But 50 percent of poor parents say it is
extremely important to them that their children earn a college degree, compared
with 39 percent of wealthier parents.
Less-educated parents, and poorer and black and Latino parents are more
likely to believe that there is no such thing as too much involvement in a
child’s education. Parents who are white, wealthy or college-educated say too
much involvement can be bad.
Parental anxieties reflect their circumstances. High-earning parents are
much more likely to say they live in a good neighborhood for raising children.
While bullying is parents’ greatest concern over all, nearly half of low-income
parents worry their child will get shot, compared with one-fifth of high-income
parents. They are more worried about their children being depressed or
anxious.
In the Pew survey, middle-class families earning between $30,000 and
$75,000 a year fell right between working-class and high-earning parents on
issues like the quality of their neighborhood for raising children,
participation in extracurricular activities and involvement in their children’s
education.
Children were not always raised so differently. The achievement gap between
children from high- and low-income families is 30 percent to 40 percent larger
among children born in 2001 than those born 25 years earlier, according to Mr.
Reardon’s research.
People used to live near people of different income levels; neighborhoods
are now more segregated by income. More than a quarter of children live in
single-parent households — a historic high, according to Pew – and these
children are three times as likely to live in poverty as those who live with
married parents. Meanwhile, growing income inequality has coincided with the
increasing importance of a college degree for earning a middle-class wage.
Yet there are recent signs that the gap could be starting to shrink. In the
past decade, even as income inequality has grown, some of the socioeconomic
differences in parenting, like reading to children and going to libraries, have
narrowed, Mr. Reardon and others have found.
Public policies aimed at young children have helped, he said, including
public preschool programs and reading initiatives. Addressing disparities in the
earliest years, it seems, could reduce inequality in the next generation.
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A version of this article appears in print on December 18, 2015, on Page A1
of the New York edition with the headline: Class Divisions Growing Worse, From
Cradle On. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
发表于 2017-6-17 20:41:26
