Paper 1 For Ras

SOC 3255

Charise Albritton

September 15, 2015

Working for a Change

The phone rings. A baby cries. A young woman grabs her apron, and drops her child off at her mother’s for the second time this afternoon. Many working-class families experience this everyday, the dreaded on-call shift. A recent New York Times article by Noam Scheiber entitled “The Perils of Ever-Changing Work Schedules Extend to Children’s Well-Being” conveys parents’ on-call, chaotic work schedules have numerous negative impacts on their children. Scheiber (2015) highlights Annette Lareau’s findings in “Invisible Inequality: Social Class and Childbearing in Black Families and White Families.” Lareau (2002) discusses the divide between the middle-class and working class and its influence on children. Building off of Scheiber’s observations of class impacting children’s daily lives, language use and social connections, Lareau solidifies Scheiber’s argument by associating the working-class with a reliance on natural growth and the idea of emerging constraint.

The New York Times article “The Perils of Ever-Changing Work Schedules Extend to Children’s Well-Being” discusses the impact of parent’s work schedules on children. One study suggests, “children’s language and problem solving skills may suffer as a result of their parents’ problematic schedules” (1). Another issue highlighted was childcare. Parents’ busy schedules and desire to save money whenever possible, leads them to turn to family and friends to watch their children instead of paying for a quality childcare service. Long, unpredictable hours leave parents with little time to address family needs. To address this problem, the Schedules That Work Act will now “require employers to give workers more say about their hours and provide them with incentives to encourage stable schedules” (2).

This article is important to sociology because it highlights the impact social class has on children’s lives. Working-class families consist of parents that pick up numerous shifts to make ends meet, resulting in their children engaging with them less and leaning more towards siblings and neighbors for interaction. This absence of communication between parents and children leads to children lacking both language skills and a sense of confidence and enlightenment. Youth are often invisible to the fact that they are affected by the organization of their family’s daily life as determined by their social class according to Annette Lareau’s journal article “Invisible Inequality: Social Class and Childbearing in Black Families and White Families.” The negative impacts of parents’ chaotic work schedules on their children’s intelligence, language use and social connections are highlighted in this article. The New York Times article portrays two important concepts from Lareau’s work: natural growth and emerging constraint.

Natural Growth

Lareau created two terms to describe the type of parenting each class consistently portrays: concerted cultivation and natural growth. Affluent and middle-class parents utilize concerted cultivation, while the working-class, poor families rely heavily upon natural growth. In natural growth, parents provide “the conditions under which children can grow but leaving leisure activities to the children themselves” (747). Lareau’s study focused on social class impacting three major aspects: daily life, language use and social connections.

Exemplified in Scheiber’s article, working-class parents spend less time with their children and less money on organized activities than affluent or middle-class parents. A study in the article found that working-class children “might be more likely to smoke and drink when they are older because of their parents’ work schedules” (1). While the article presents evidence of this connection, it is problematic to assume that children will adopt these habits simply because they are not entertained with dance lessons or a club soccer league. Another result of natural growth is language use. Working-class parents tend to spend less time communicating with their children because of their work schedules. When parents spend time with their families, their language choice is often “directive rather than reasoning” (Lareau 747). Scheiber noted the link between parents’ chaotic work schedules and children performing poorly on tests. Due to a lack of inquisitive communication in the household, working-class children do not practice this skill as much as affluent and middle-class children do.

Finally, the article reveals working-class families rely on family members to care for their children instead of paying for a higher quality childcare service. While this may strengthen family ties, children will not receive the same level of education as those in quality childcare. Also, their social interactions will be limited to family members. A child’s social class, as determined by its parents’ socioeconomic status, shapes every aspect of his or her life. The new bill mentioned hopes to reduce some of the negative aspects of natural growth that are conveyed in the works of Lareau and Scheiber.

Emerging Constraint

To convey how natural growth might impact children in the future, Lareau introduces the idea of emerging constraint. When interacting with institutions, working-class parents appear constrained. As the New York Times article revealed, parents, like Kris Buchmann, find it impossible “to meet their responsibilities to their families and hold down a job at a company with on-call shifts” (5). Parents often quit their jobs before approaching their bosses with a concern or request. Lareau’s work suggests this sense of deference to authority, or emerging constraint, is passed down from one generation to the next. While affluent children felt comfortable around authority figures, “working-class and poor children did not display the same sense of entitlement or advantages” when communicating with others (747). Numerous individuals in the newspaper article did not communicate with their bosses to discuss schedules and possible conflicts. Instead, they waited until authorities created a bill to assist them. This article highlights the importance of emerging constraint and introduces a bill that has the power to curve the cycle of fearing authority members in a different social class.

Both Lareau and Scheiber highlight a topic that many are unaware of. After reading these works, light is shed on the immense influence social class has on children, specifically on their future careers and how they will engage with employers. As conditioned by natural growth and emerging constraint, working-class children are proven to have less formal communication skills and a large amount of both fear and respect for authority. With the introduction of the bill discussed in the article, parents will have more time to spend with their children. This could increase the level of verbal communication between working- class adults and children. Ultimately, this has the potential to increase verbal comprehension test scores and lessen the negative effects of natural growth.

References

Lareau, Annette. 2002. “Invisible Inequality: Social Class and Childbearing in

Black and White Families.” American Sociological Review 67(5): 747-776.

Scheiber, Noam. 2015. “The Perils of Ever-Changing Work Schedules Extend

to Children’s Well-being” The New York Times, September 14, pp. 1-6.

Retrieved September 14, 2015 from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/13/business/economy/the-perils-of-ever-changing-work-schedules-extend-to-childrens-well-being.html?_r=0