Is Your Social Class Making You Approach Parenting All Wrong?

Are you poor? You are probably parenting your kids All Wrong — yes, in capital letters! At least, that's what some people would have you think, and when they write about that, they often point to one person's research in particular.

Sociologist Annette Lareau studied 88 families of different racial and socio-economic class backgrounds and then selected a final 12 for further examination. For three weeks, she and her research team spent lots of time with these families, watching them attend religious services, go doctor's appointments, sports, supermarkets, and spend time at home in the evenings. From this study, the findings of which were published in a book titled Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life, Lareau concluded that there were two distinct parenting styles.

How Does Class Affect Your Parenting?

Middle-class families tended to practice what Lareau calls "concerted cultivation", while she dubbed the style she saw among poorer parents "accomplishment of natural growth". The differences are very significant, with outcomes being just as interesting. So where exactly do middle-class parents differ from working-class parents?

Lareau says about middle-class parents: "They actively foster their children’s talents, opinions, and skills by enrolling the children in organized activities, reasoning with them, and closely monitoring their experiences in institutions such as schools." Examples would include encouraging children to ask why they receive a less-than-stellar grade, preparing them to ask their doctors questions about their health, and explaining routines.

Middle-class kids' childhoods are spent focusing on their individual development through organized activities, which Lareau believes helps them learn how to manage time, challenge authority, and navigate bureaucracy. As time goes on, middle-class children develop an "emerging sense of entitlement". 

The working-class children Lareau observed had completely different childhoods: rather than experiencing dialog-based parenting, they were simply ordered what to do. Unstructured time, time spent exploring the neighborhood with friends or watching TV with their extended family, was another feature of a working-class childhood, according to Lareau. She says: "These parents care for their children, love them, and set limits for them, but within these boundaries, they allow the children to grow spontaneously." Then, she goes on to add that "the working class and poor parents in the study often were very distrustful of contacts with 'the school' and healthcare facilities". Thus, working-class kids develop an "emerging sense of constraint". 

A follow-up of her initial study revealed that working-class children grew into adults who were more likely to have dropped out of high school or at least not to have pursued tertiary education, that they had more work experience than middle-class kids the same age, and that they generally entered adult life earlier.

READ Can We Blame Our Parents If We Are Overweight?

This follow-up might seem to confirm the initial idea that parenting practices influence socio-economic outcomes, but could other factors be at play, too?

Why Do Poor Parents Raise Their Children Differently?

Do working-class children often grow up to be working-class adults because their parents failed to practice concerted cultivation? Before we can even ask this question, it would be prudent to remember that it is hard to ferry your children to tons of extracurricular activities when you are busy working three jobs to make ends meet, never mind that it is hard to actually pay for those activities. It would be prudent to remember, too, that finances dictate whether a parent has the time to spend in constant dialog with their children, and that stress caused by worries over bills or lay-offs at work may prevent a parent from bonding with their children over intellectual conversations during family dinners. Finances dictate whether and how much a young person has to work to be able to support themselves through college, too. 

Finances impact parenting styles, but do parenting styles impact financial outcomes for a child more than their income level and day-to-day realities during childhood? A much larger study of 11,000 children conducted by researchers from the University of London's Institute of Education showed that economic class had a much larger impact on children's school performance than parenting techniques, including whether or not parents read to their kids before bedtime. Children of parents in managerial positions and professional jobs were at least eight months ahead of their peers whose parents were socially poor and frequently unemployed, regardless of how they parented.

Encouraging poorer parents to adopt the same parenting methods that make middle-class children successful later in life may not be the magic solution, then. 

The Golden Middle Way?

If you are wondering what you can learn from Lareau's work, that's not so simple either, but there's plenty to learn nonetheless. Lareau admitted that middle-class children were exhausted from a rigidly structured schedule that left them with little free time, while working-class kids had more energy, knew how to entertain themselves, and enjoyed closer relationships with members of their extended families. 

Yes, participating in a few extracurricular activities can help kids find their passions. Yes, engaging children in conversations that encourage critical thinking and standing up to authority when needed will offer skills that benefit a person throughout their life. But also, having the freedom to spend unstructured time pottering around can be truly liberating and meaningful, and close ties with extended family are priceless. 

READ Immune System Boosters for Children and Parents

Ultimately, as Lareau pointed out, we all want our kids to thrive and be happy. No matter our financial situation, we can learn from other parents' practices and enrich our own kids' lives with them, helping them become those happy and successful adults. Thankfully, it's how the children themselves define that happiness and success that matters most at the end of the day, whether they become a plumber or a doctor.