Childhood

Readings:
1. Barrie Thorne and Zella Luria. 1997. “Sexuality and Gender in Children’s Daily Worlds.” Pp. 141-152 in Down to Earth Sociology: Introductory Readings. Edited by James M. Henslin. New York: The Free Press.
2. Annette Lareau. 2002. "Invisible Inequality: Social Class and Childrearing in Black Families and White Families." American Sociological Review, v. 67 (5): 747-776.
3. Frances K. Goldschneider and Linda J. Waite. 2001. “Children’s Share in Household Tasks.” In Shifting the Center: Understanding Contemporary Families, 2nd ed. Edited by Susan J. Ferguson. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company.
4. Juliet Schor. 2004. “America’s Most Wanted: Inside the World of Young Consumers.” Boston College Magazine, 54, 4 (Fall), pp.30-37.



Questions:1. According to Thorne and Luria, what aspect of childhood experience serves as one of the main sources of gender differences? How does it operate?

In this article the authors analyze Childs play and in turn highlight how this play has serious sociological meaning and shadows the maintenance of social boundaries between genders. They want to look into why it is exactly that children are so focused and consumed with separating things such as activities, toys and friendships on the basis of sex. From the start boys are focused on sports, competition, games, and testing limits of rules and girls in their own way are focused on dolls and being nice, etc. These very things are what socialize us into adult gender roles. When we are older things are basically the same, just in different aspects. “Females are more concerned with intimacy, emotionality, and romance, and boys with sexuality.” This article tells us that it is in our childhood that we write scripts for our attitudes and so forth in adulthood.
In the daily separation of boys and girls and gender segregation is central in the daily life of kids in elementary school. Within this setting boys and girls are constantly trying to arrange themselves in same-sex groups. Whether they’re just standing in line, choosing seats, finding companions to work with, or at recess, same sexes are clustering together. “Gender segregation in elementary and middle school has been found to account for more segregation than race.” (p138) Even playgrounds have gendered spaces. This proves that gender segregation is more prevalent when children are allowed to construct their own activities, which takes place in school settings.

2. According to Goldscheider and Waite, how much housework do children do in contemporary families? How does it vary by child’s gender and type of family?

The tasks children do are inflexibly divided by gender and for the most part families, with girls doing a variety of different tasks and taking on more around the house compared to boys. Goldscheider and Waite tell us in the article that “sex typing” of children’s household tasks begin very early, and sharp differences become engrained or like they call it “crystallized” by adolescence. In some situations, girls are spending up to twice as much time doing household chores as their brothers. This apparently mirrors different levels of contribution that’s done by their fathers and mothers. This is not to undermine the fact that in a lot of households, parents and mostly mothers are doing all the work.
Views in America are shifting from these beliefs though in some ways. Preparation in the workplace is becoming a new focus for us, not preparation for adult roles in the home. Homework for example has now become a valid excuse for children to get out of housework. “The old view that children should help their parents (and eventually support them in their old age) has given way to an expectation that parents must exert themselves to the utmost to ensure that their children grow up to be successes.” (p.1) American children in view are now becoming useless children instead of useful like that did at one time.
Children now take relatively little responsibility for most household tasks- children contribute in small proportions in total household labor (about 15%). Their participation depends really on what task exactly is at hand. Age and sex composition of children affect whether women of households share tasks with offspring. Grown children for example are spending more time at work than at school which once again makes them less available for household chores just like they were excused of chores early in life for homework. The authors tell us that people reason this by telling/ reminding themselves how stressful this time period is for people, which in turn makes the possibility to demand help from “older” children dwindle.
“Children’s age and gender also influence the amount of task sharing [...]” (p.4) It is expected that with the presence of very young children, there will be an increase with the sharing of older children. When there are more children to go around, it is more likely that they will assist in helping. Families with older children usually do more work because they seem more capable. Teenage girls for example are sharing 5 times more tasks than do families with boys of the same age. And we wonder why when we grow up and we try to make things equal in a marriage why they don’t work out or why the man doesn’t understand that a women doesn’t want to do certain things...
In households where the presence of two adult roles/ parents lack sometimes make the child-help and work necessary in most cases. Sometimes children have to step in and take up the role as the missing adult/caregiver/parent, etc. especially if they are not available because there is a necessity to go out and work. Single parent families and mother-only families see childhood help as an absolute necessity. In both two parent families and mother-only families, boys do the most minimal work. Within this though in mother-only families boys are still doing more when compare to the other family but it’s still less than what everyone else is doing.
Finally in stepparent families, boys in early to late teens share more in household work than younger children in stepfamilies. Household today like to generate ideas of completing things as a team but the first option looked at is a sort of teaming up between spouses and where that may lack there is then a branching out to the children of the household.

3. According to Annette Lareau, how do the models of childrearing differ by race and class?

Lareau explores how parenting and childhood vary by social class. There are demonstrated class-based differences within the organization of children’s daily lives, their interaction with social institutions, and their language development. This study does a good job of allowing us to look deeper into children’s lives and give us a rich understanding of how culture conveyed to children vary by class in way that entrench class inequality at early ages.
In this study she observed two elementary schools did interviews with parents and observed homes of children. In middle class households when it comes to childrearing, parents foster and assess their child’s talents by molding their reasoning skills, involving them in organized activities, and communicate directly with teachers and coaches. Middle class parents challenge their children, broaden their vocabularies, and model how to demand action from social institutions. In working-class and poor families, they tend to base their childrearing on natural accomplishment of growth. This seems to be more spontaneous than the previous one. It focuses on providing children’s basic needs and allows talents to develop “naturally.” These kids have fewer structured activities and clear boundaries between adults and children. Working class kids usually get along with their siblings more than middle-class kids because the value of family is very important for survival. When comparing both childrearing techniques we see how working class and poor children learn to accept their environments and middle-class children learn to demand what they want because they are usually socialized better and enlightened in a variety of different ways. One group is clearly going to be prepared to achieve in certain social institutions like school and work and the others won’t.
All parents and communities within our society need to expose ALL children to the beneficial features of both approaches mentioned in this article. There is a very limited amount of discussion that takes place in this article surrounding race’s role in shaping childhood and framing futures. Lareau tells us that social class is more of a determining factor when it comes to the organization and experience of childhood rather that race.



4. What are the signs of commercialization of childhood presented in Juliet Schor’s article? How does this commercialization affect children’s well-being?

Schor tells us that in our society, our children are immersed in marketplace of consumerism by very early ages. “Kids can recognize logos by 18 months, and before reaching their second birthday, they’re asking for products by brand name. By three or three and half, experts say, children start to believe that brands communicate their personal qualities—that they’re cool, for example, or strong, or smart.” Toy fads for example our banned from school grounds in most cases because of the likelihood of fights and disruption. Broad social trends are captivating not only our worlds but our children’s worlds in every aspect. Billions of dollars in marketing expenditures are directed at children and not only are parents buying but children themselves are becoming shoppers at an earlier age. These very children

The idea of brand names is a big part in this article. The embracement of labels and logos is the very thing that drives the marketplace. Product labeling and identity have become an obsession for both the companies and the children. “They turn brands into “signs,” symbolic entities detached from specific products and functional characteristics.” The increase and compulsion amongst youth to have brands have sort of perpetuated this new crave for designer labels and luxury. The kids are what drive these trends.
The article tells us that the things kids ask for now become more and more adult-like. Kids are now focusing in and requesting certain brand names from their parent, they are technologically savvy, designer labels now make kid sizes, and so forth. “Today’s children are more harries, sped up, likely to be herded into productive activities and less able to be kids.” What if they were this obsessed about schools and education in this way? Where would our society be then?

As anyone can see, commercialization is taking a toll on our youth and making them almost obsessed with material things/ goods. Commercialization in itself have in many ways become apart of a social problem for our society. This article shows us that we have to be more concerned with what this is doing to our kids nutritionally, psychologically, mentally, physically, emotionally and in every other area. On the nutritional level there is growing concern around childhood obesity for example, because children are eating large/ excessive quantities of advertised food products which are usually those items that have no nutritional value and are high in calories, sugars and fats. Of all children nationally only 12% have healthy diets! Overall there are signs of deterioration in well being in almost every area of their lives!

“Psychologists have found that espousing these kinds of materialist values undermines well-being, leading people to be more depressed, anxious, less vital, and in worse physical health. Among youth, those who are more materialistic are more likely to engage in risky behaviors. In the light of these findings, the changing outlook of childhood is worrisome.”