When probed, the teenagers from affluent households talked about high expectations, both their own and their parents’. They talked about “too-muchness”: too many activities, too many consumer choices, too much to learn. Whereas teens from low-income households talked about how much easier it was to get schoolwork done thanks to computers and the Internet, teens from high-income homes talked about how much had to be sifted through because of computers and the Internet. As one commentator put it, “Children feel the pressure…to be sure they don’t slide back. Everything’s about going forward….
...more
