Due to the commercialization of childhood and a pervasive consumer culture, children often measure their success and worth by the materials that they possess. Children are able to be apart of the “conversations” in their school settings by alluding to their material wealth which can be quantified by the toys they own, the extravagance of their birthday parties, and their family vacations. Although the commercialization of childhood affects all families in one way or another, the manifestation of children’s consumer culture in the lives of children and their families is heavily dependent on the social context and intersections between class and race. In the book, Longing and Belonging(2009), Allison Pugh studies the relationship between children, …show more content…
Wright Mills differentiates between trouble and issues. Troubles pertain to the private life of an individual and the problems that occur within their immediate relationships and social settings. Issues, on the other hand, to do with public matters regarding larger social organizations and institutions. (1959: 8) According to Mills, “Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both”(1959: 3). Fundamentally,the private lives of individuals can not be understood if it not placed within the bigger picture of relevant societal structures and institutions like race, class, and gender. This being the case, the “shame” and “triumph”(Pugh 2009: 81) that children feel when they have toys of value within their personal circles at school must also be considered in relation to their greater significance within social institution. In the case of the Oakland children, their materials and ability to engage the conversation regarding their personal lives and belongings signal that they are members of a certain economic background and …show more content…
Robert D. Putnam describes the relationship between the social class of parents and the outcome of their children in the text, Our Kids: The American Dream(2015). He writes, “Even ideal parenting cannot compensate for all the ill effects of poverty on children, and even incompetent parenting cannot nullify all the advantages conferred by parental affluence and education”(Putnam 2015: 134). Accordingly, although Angela, the African American single mother of three, is an “ideal” parent because she has good intentions and invests into her child’s future, the systemic inequality of class does not allow her to make informed and impactful decisions. Thus the disadvantages faced poor children as a result of the poverty of their parents is likely to reproduce itself due to deeply embedded class inequality of their
In Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life, Annette Lareau discussed the extensive amount of research she conducted employing observational and interview techniques. She collected data on the middle class, working class, and poor families. She was trying to understand the impact of a child’s early parental guidance on the child’s life. She was able to conduct this research with 12 families, all of whom had fourth graders. She gathered enough information to conclude the major differences in the parenting styles of each type of family, which was directly correlated to socioeconomic status. Annette Lareau opens her book with two chapters to give the reader an idea on what the examples she gives will detail.
As much as society tries to deny the fact that the family that one comes from determines their fate, in almost every case this very fact is true. Today, we see how infants who are born into wealthy families are treated differently than children who are born into drug and disease-stricken poverty. Higher classed people stand out in society on both a local and national level much more than the average middle class working family.
The book Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life published in 2003, takes a close look into the lives of different families in the United States and how they are affected by race and social class and how their family lives differ. The Author, Annette Lareau, discusses how social class affects the parenting styles and how these parenting styles are affecting the children. Although Lareau’s book could use a few changes, it is well written and it is a good read to help better understand how social class and parenting styles can affect the lives of different children on a personal level. In
That is not always true. It is true that that living in poverty and trying to make ends meet, and raising children at the same time can be tough, especially when you are a single working parent (Gladwell). The truth is that having money does not always make people good parents. Furthermore, Gladwell says that parents success sort of overwhelm their children. In fact, in some cases, parents have worked hard during their whole life, and become successful because they “learned the long and hard way about the value of money and the meaning of work and the joy and fulfillment that come from making your way into the world.” Sadly, that is a lesson hard to teach when having
Lareau, Annette. Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2011. Print.
Marketers become rich by selling the idea of happiness to children; that life is all about buying and getting, and money is happiness. This ill treatment of children, by marketers, negatively affects social aspects of children. In more recent years, marketers have started to push more expensive, “branded” products to children. As Velmha La.Point states, “There’s a mantra in American society you are what you have, you are what you buy, you are what you own. The corollary of that, is and if you don’t have it, then you are a nobody”(Consuming Kids). This then leads to things such as depression or low self-esteem if ...
...ion, for instance, can send their children to public or private universities. Thus leaving children whose parents lack the monetary access to only attending community colleges or just completely putting a halt to their educational process. This lack of mobility for children who cannot further their education, according to Bernstein’s study (2003), “[puts] a lid on the intergenerational progress that has long been a mainstay of the American experience” (p. 95). Bernstein’s research indicates a flaw to the American Dream because it does not provide an equal opportunity for the children of the poor, and without education they cannot move upward in the economic spectrum.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2014 African Americans held the highest poverty rate of 26%, with Hispanics holding the second highest rate at 24% (DeNavas-Walt & Proctor, 2015). When comparing this to the poverty rates of Whites at 10% and Asians at 12% in 2014, we see that in America, racial and ethnic minorities are more vulnerable to experiencing poverty (DeNavas-Walt & Proctor, 2015). In addition, discrimination is seen between genders among those living in poverty. Family households of a single adult are more likely to be headed by women and are also at a greater risk for poverty (DeNavas-Walt & Proctor, 2015). In 2014, 30.6% of households headed by a single woman were living below the poverty line compared to 15.7% for households headed by a single male (DeNavas-Walt & Proctor, 2015). Many factors such as poor wages for women, pregnancy associations, and the increase of single-woman parented families have impacted the increase of women in poverty. Children are most harshly affected by poverty because for them the risks are compounded, as they lack the defenses and supports needed to combat the toxicity surrounding them. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 21% of all U.S. children (73.6 million children) under 18 years old lived in poverty in 2014 (DeNavas-Walt & Proctor,
Velazquez concludes that “from clothes to computers… , no American child is immune from the underlying suggestion that owning these things defines success. While the message of excess materialism is toxic for all our children, it is especially cruel for the one out of six American children living in the poverty” (769). The phrase “no American child” indicates that Velazquez is biased when she discusses large corporations’ influences on children. Her tone suggests that she is against material possessions. She finds them toxic and that is how she draws her comparison to the toxicity of the corporations.
Education has been historically considered as an equalizer of society in America, allowing the opportunity for even the disadvantaged to reach success. Race was once the strongest factor in determining future achievement, but today Stanford Sociologist, Sean F. Reardon, says income level has become more consequential (Tavernise). President Barack Obama was one of the lucky few able to overcome the obstacles he faced growing up being both African American and underprivileged, but most children are not as lucky (Rampton , Nawaguna). In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot, the Lacks family lived in poverty and struggled to perform well in school, resulting in many of them dropping out even before high school (Skloot). The success gap between high and low income students in the U.S. has increased significantly in recent years (McGlynn). The educational achievement of students is significantly affected by their home life, and those living in poverty are much more likely to fall behind academically than children coming from affluent families.
In conclusion, the power of advertising today what's become very effective through TV, and unfortunately children are mainly victims of these previous techniques. As Ellen Goodman explains in “Family Counterculture”, the parents have to fight the cultural imposition that affect the integrity of children. They slowly raise consumerist children that won't have the same perks of those who weren't raised with today’s ads. For these reasons, it is important to notice this ads that slow the kids’ critical thinking should be fought, even though it is the challenge of 21st century
After reading “Invisible Inequality: Social Class and Childrearing in Black Families and White Families,” by Annette Lareau, it was evident that she collected much data from her study of different types of families. In this study, with the help of other sociologists, Lareau went into the lives of both black and white middle class and working class/ poor families. In her study she observed the behavior of children at home, school, and in the public eye. She observed the parenting methods the adults chose to use and the child’s reaction to them. Lareau and her team were able to see what influences certain factors such as income, race, family size, home location, schooling, and career choices had on each family and their children.
Consumption involves individuals purchasing goods to achieve a meaning or value to the consumer, not simply for the material benefit it offers. Instead, ‘commodities are not just objects of economic exchange, they are goods to think with, goods to speak with’ (Fiske, 1989) (Cited in Bocock, 1993). This suggests that individuals use goods as symbolic props, as a way of creating and moulding their own identities. It is suggested that the individual has the ability to create their own narrative and can rely upon the novelties of consumer goods. However, the individual is still bound by the market and the mass commodities of Capitalism. For example: sports individuals purchase equipment, clothing etc, to encourage the identity they wish to possess. As they see these goods as a connection to their lifestyle.
In an education journal, Anyon (“Social”) provides the reader with the concept that there are four different types of schools, working class schools, middle-class schools, affluent professional schools, and executive elite schools, after observing five schools. The working class schools are made up of parents with blue-collar jobs, with less than a third of the fathers being skilled, and the majority of them being semiskilled or unskilled. “Approximately 15 percent of the fathers were unemployed… approximately 15 percent of the families in each school are at or below the federal ‘poverty’ level…the incomes of the majority of the families…are typical of 38.6 percent of the families in the United States” (Anyon, “Social”). In a more recent study conducted by Anyon (“What”, 69), she states that,
With their increased wealth, the rich, from 19762 to 2006, have increased their spending on enrichment activities for their children by 151 percent, compared to only 57 percent for poor families (O’Brien). This gives rich children an advantage over poor children. This gap is further extended in public education. Rich children often go to better schools that provide opportunities that children in poor schools do not receive. This is “an educational system that provides such privilege to some students, while willfully and purposefully denying it to others” (Strauss). The current education system allows rich children to succeed while it tells the poor children that “they are inadequate instead of educating them” (Strauss). Even when poor children achieve in school, they are just as likely to succeed later in life as rich children who have dropped out of school (O’Brien). This creates an atmosphere where the education provided to the poor is woefully inadequate when compared to that hoarded by the rich. This, in turn, continues to place poor children in a situation that keeps them