Allison J. Pugh, now a sociology professor at the University of Virginia, spent a couple of years following both affluent and struggling families around Oakland, California, and described them in a book called Longing and Belonging. What she determined is that our children are constantly navigating something she refers to as an “economy of dignity.” In doing so, their feelings of self-worth often rise or fall depending on constantly shifting standards around the possessions and experiences that matter in their own little worlds. Pugh, who saw these economies playing out in both poor and
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