Concerted Cultivation and the Accomplishment of Natural Growth Laughing and yell

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Concerted Cultivation and the Accomplishment of Natural Growth Laughing and yelling, a white fourth-grader named Garrett Tallinger splashes around in the swimming pool in the backyard of his four- bedroom home in the suburbs on a late spring afternoon. As on most evenings, after a quick dinner his father drives him to soccer practice. This is only one of Garrett's many activities. His brother has a baseball game at a different location. There are evenings when the boys' parents relax, sipping a glass of wine. Tonight is not one of them. As they rush to change out of their work clothes and get the children ready for practice, Mr. and Mrs. Tallinger are harried Only ten minutes away, a Black fourth-grader, Alexander Williams, is riding home from a school open house.1 His mother is driving their beige, leather-upholstered Lexus. It is 9:00 P.M. on a Wednesday evening. Ms Williams is tired from work and has a long Thursday ahead of her. She will get up at 4:45 A.M. to go out of town on business and will not return before 9:0o P.M. On Saturday morning, she will chauffeur Alexander to a private piano lesson at 8:15 A.M., which will be followed by a choir rehearsal and then a soccer game. As they ride in the dark, Alexanders mother, in a quiet voice, talks with her son, asking him questions and eliciting his opinions Discussions between parents and children are a hallmark of middle- class child rearing. Like many middle-class parents, Ms. Williams and her husband see themselves as "developing" Alexander to cultivate his tal- ents in a concerted fashion. Organized activities, established and con-

Explanation / Answer

Over the course of this study, Lareau drew a common distinction between the middle class and poor/working class families in how they chose to rear their children. She separated them into two parenting styles, “concerted cultivation” and “natural growth”.Concerted cultivation was the predominant method used by middle class families, the parents focus on fostering the talents of their children by involving them in organized activities,encouraging themto ask questions and participate in discussions, and intervening on their behalf with teachers and coaches. Placing a large emphasis on the child’s reasoning skills allows the parent to stimulate the child’s development and promote greater social and cognitive abilities. Lareau also noted thatchildren from families who practiced concerted cultivation had developed a much stronger verbalacuity due to more exposure to language and communication at home. Superior verbal acuity enhances the personal skillset required later on when the child is applying to college or entering

the work force. Looking people in the eyes and feeling more comfortable with authority figures are also examples of valuable personal skills children from concerted cultivation families develop, which gives them another advantage later in life. These family interactions can also contribute to the child gaining a “sense of entitlement”. Children from this environment tended to negotiate and talk back to their parents much more frequently than in working class families. Children from poor/working class families predominately used thenatural growth method. This parenting style focuses on providing children's basic needs while allowing talents to develop naturally. These children experience fewer structured activities, more interaction with siblings, and more clear boundaries between adults and children. Children from working class families feel less entitled to adult attention, unlike middle class children, and therefore learn to be a lot more independent at an earlier age. The parents communicate through the use of directives with their children rather than reasoning. These parents also tend to have a more general uneasiness and distrust with authority figures, causing them to feel less comfortable when dealing with the child’s school. Since education and other central institutions in society tend to have the middle class values of concerted cultivation, children from natural growth families tend to experience an “emergent sense of restraint in institutional settings”. The contradiction the working class child experiences between varying interactions with people of authority in their home life and people of authority in society can create feelings of distrust and asense of distance from these institutions, much like their parents, therefore perpetuating the cycle. My perspective on childhood experience is fairly unique in that I lived in both working class and middle class environments growing up. My parents both came from suburban .

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During the 1990s, Lareau and a team of grad students studied 88 families from various backgrounds -- black, white, middle class, working class, poor -- and then conducted in-depth observations of 12 families. In her 2003 book, Unequal Childhoods, she explains that middle-class families raised their children in a different way than working-class and poor families, and that these differences cut across racial lines. Lareau's research is finding a new audiencethanks to the resurgence of interest in social class and economic outcomes.

Lareau writes that the working class and the middle class have very different methods of raising their children. Poor and working-class parents practice what Lareau calls accomplishment of natural growth parenting. Their children have long periods of unstructured time where they shoot the breeze with neighbors and cousins, roam around the neighborhood, and watch TV with their large, extended families. Parents give orders to the children, rather than soliciting their opinions. Parents believe that they should care for their children, but kids reach adulthood naturally without too much interference from adults.In contrast, middle-class kids are driven to soccer practice and band recitals, are involved in family debates at dinner time, and are told that to ask their teacher why they received a B on a French exam. They talk, talk, talk to their kids all the time. Even discipline becomes a matter of negotiation and bargaining between the child and the adult. Lareau calls this style of parenting concerted cultivation.

Parenting styles have a huge impact on future outcomes, says Lareau. She speculates that concerted cultivation creates adults who know how to challenge authority, navigate bureaucracy, and manage their time -- all the skills needed to remain in the middle class. The working-class kids lack that training.

Yes, the middle-class kids gain advantages later in life, but are they really happier than the working-class and poor kids? Wearing an objective academic hat, Lareau refuses to weigh in on what is the best form of parenting. However, she does point out that the middle-class kids and parents in her study were exhausted from their schedule-driven days. Unlike the middle-class kids, the working-class kids knew how to entertain themselves, had boundless energy, and enjoyed close ties with extended family..

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