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Recommended: The importance of Nature vs. Nurture in child development

Today in approximately 95 million middle-class American homes the idea that you can pick up the phone on a Friday afternoon and invite a friend over for dinner is foreign. It is a completely alien concept that a family could make plans to share quality time with friends and extended family without a two to four week advanced notice. However, in the 200 million working class and poverty level homes the idea of not being able to make those last minute plans is the foreign thought. Parenting styles in these American homes is what Annette Lareau addresses in “Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life”. Based on my experience and other evidence, Lareau’s argument that middle and upper class parents use concerted cultivation and working class parents use natural growth is accurate because our personal calendars of events do not lie. I grew up in a two income, working class household with one sibling. Neither of my parents had a secondary education and both worked an average of 45 to 50 hours a week to support the family. During the entire 4 years of high school I cannot recall my mother asking me about one homework assignment, attending one band concert or football game. She didn’t encourage me to be involved in community organizations or civic activities. She did allow me to participate in the activities I chose on my own and for the most part she just left me to figure things out on my own. We also always seemed to live near family that we would gather with and rely on with great regularity and I can’t recall ever looking at a calendar or schedule to determine my future plans. According to Kris Gutierrez, Carolina Izquierdo and Tamar Kremer-Sadlik, authors of the article "Middle Class Working Families' Beliefs and Eng... ... middle of paper ... ... the American middle-class that has spent the better part of three decades in a decline. That decline coupled with the natural behavior to adapt and adjust would logically lead to the desire to provide the best path to opportunity we can for their children. Works Cited 1. Gutierrez, Kris D., Carolina Izquierdo, and Tamar Kremer-Sadlik. "Middle Class Working Families' Beliefs and Engagement in Children's Extra-Curricular Activities: The Social Organization of Children's Futures." The International Journal of Learning 17.3 (2010): 633-56. Web. 21 May 2014. 2. Putnam, Robert D., Carl B. Frederick, and Kaisa Snellman. "Growing Class Gaps in Social Connectedness among American Youth." Harvard Kennedy School of Government, 8 Aug. 2012. Web. 21 May 2014. 3. Lareau, Annette. "1." Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life. Berkeley: U of California, 2003. Print.

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