Unequal Childhoods by Annette Lareau Book Review

Children are like a blank canvas – full of potential and the chance to become something great. And it’s up to parents to properly guide and oversee that potential in order to allow that child to grow up the best they can be. However, how that parent raises their child greatly depends on the resources and opportunities provided to them. In the book, Unequal Childhoods, Annette Lareau analyzes how both race and social class prove to be greatly influential factors in one’s parenting styles. And judging from her various studies, rather than race, it becomes increasingly apparent that one’s social class is the greatest deciding factor on a child’s development. Race doesn’t affect the opportunities provided to them, the learned skills, or how involved a parent is in their child’s institutions, rather it’s their social class that does.  

Typically, families with a wealthier background have more opportunities in life simply because they can afford it. More money provides more leeway for extracurriculars and activities for their child to grow. Along with this, these families tend to have more free time to spend with their children in order to support them by driving them to these extracurriculars for example or just taking part in meaningful conversation. Lareau notes this fact in particular in one study of a black middle class family that, “…use language as an end in and of itself.” (Lareau 2011: 107). They enjoy talking with each other, and this passively helps the children gain communication skills as they grow. This heavily involved style of parenting where parents more closely influence and guide their children is a style that Lareau calls concerted cultivation, and it’s a style that most wealthier families adopt. Lower-end families, on the other hand, don’t have this leeway and often spend any extra money or time on necessities such as paying the bills, getting food, etc. In these situations where the parents are constantly busy, children are often left to their own devices. And this parenting style that provides children with free reign and encourages them to develop according to their own devices is a parenting style that Lareau dubs natural growth. This style of parenting is most evident is lower class families. And it’s in the way that Lareau identifies these two different parenting styles as concerted cultivation and natural growth that makes the social class difference more evident in their effect of parenting styles. 

Another example of how social class affects one’s parenting styles is what skills they teach to their children. Parents that raise their children with the concerted cultivation method tend to enroll their child in many extracurriculars and activities that promote certain skills that are useful in the workforce such as teamwork, time management, and more. An example of this is where Lareau identifies two young boys, Garrett and Spencer who claim, “Scheduled activities are so central to their lives that the boys use activities to keep track of the days of the week.” (Lareau 2011: 44). These activities help train these boys’ time management skills which is incredibly important for their future in just about any career field. It’s because they gain these skills at such an early age that children from wealthier households tend to be more successful. On the other hand, for lower class families, they don’t have the chance to gain these institutional skills. One child even claims to find such organized activities to be an interruption to his time (Lareau 2011: 66). These children spend their time much more freely, often spending time with children in their neighborhood and playing. So, while this parenting style of natural growth doesn’t work on any institutional skills, these children instead learn the value of autonomy and improve their creativity. 

Finally, one’s social class tends to determine how involved a parent is in their child’s extracurriculars. Going along with how assertive more wealthy families tend to be, they also prove more involved and invested in their child’s institutions. Families with a wealthier background tend to act in a more assertive manner, aiming to take what they know they deserve rather than passively given it. This is evident in the book where Lareau states, “When Ms. Yanelli complained that she ‘hates’ the school, she gave her son a lesson in powerlessness and frustration in the face of an important institution.” (Lareau 2011: 7). With this lesson, Ms. Yanelli teaches her son that only he knows what he needs in life, not his school or his clubs, but himself and in order to get it he needs to demand it from these institutions. 

Families with a lower class background, however, have a habit of acting more passively, opting to trust in the opinion of authority instead. This behavior tends to be less helpful, with teacher often stating to be disappointed in parents with less active and assertive behavior (Lareau 2011: 209). They want parents to be more involved with their students, however poorer families often weren’t taught to be assertive like those from wealthier families, with one such mother stating, “…being actively supportive means doing whatever teachers tell her to do.” (Lareau 2011: 209). Being raised in the style promoting natural growth leads parents to raise their children in the same manner, thus leading them to act in the same way. Children taught in a style promoting natural growth don’t learn how to speak on equal footing with those of authority. Instead, they’re taught to listen and do whatever they’re told. 

To conclude, race doesn’t affect one’s parenting styles as much as their social class does. While race can affect matters involving culture and traditions, in terms of a child’s growth and development almost every deciding factor is determined by the parent’s social class. From the opportunities a parent can provide, to the skills they pass on, and how involved they can be is greatly dependent on their social class.