Reading Classes: On Culture and Classism in America

by Barbara Jensen

This self-directed “peerness” among working class children was evident to Lareau, who commented repeatedly about the great playfulness and “boundless energy” that these children shared together when grownups merely said, “Okay, go out and play now.” In contrast to the concerted cultivation of the middle class families, she called working class child rearing “the accomplishment of natural growth”: Parents tend to direct their efforts toward keeping children safe, enforcing discipline, and, when they deem it necessary, regulating their behavior in specific areas. Within these boundaries, working-class and poor children are allowed to grow and thrive. They are given the flexibility to choose activities and playmates and to decide how active or inactive to be as they engage in these activities. Thus, whereas middle-class children often are treated as a project to be developed, working-class and poor children are given boundaries for their behavior and then allowed to grow. (2003, 66–67) Lareau noticed that these children, despite significant economic hardships, played more, whined less, and never once complained of being bored