Education-Part 3 Unequal Childrens Book Essay Sample

As a teacher, I get an opportunity to observe human nature at very close quarters. It is interesting to take notes about children as they grow, pass from one class to another, and the factors that influence their decisions when they get to the brink of adulthood. Reading Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race and Family Life by Annette Lareau made me realize that there is some truth in these observations that I have been making over the years in my capacity as a teacher. Children do get influenced by their family life, the financial strength and position of their family and the nature of jobs that their parents are involved in. Above all, these things play a very important role in shaping the psyche and personality of students. However, I have also seen that this is a much generalized statement because there are always some exceptions which prove this theory wrong.
The theories and conclusions which have been discussed in the book are based on research that was conducted on 88 families. These families included African Americans as well as white families. However, the interesting factor that emerged through this study is that race does not have an impact on children in so much as it reinforces their value systems and belief systems to a certain extent. The real impact is of the parenting styles that are adopted by the families which are unique to each family. Of course, the author does not lay down any claim as to which style of parenting and bringing up children is better than others. From my personal experience, I have seen that the manner in which parents choose to bring up their child often defines how independent or confident the child is. Seeing the parents work hard for a living and struggling to provide for the family also influences a child’s psyche.
I can quote an example here from my own experience as a teacher of 2nd grade children. Children of this age are also very perceptive of the situation within their families and more often than not their behavior in class and amongst other students exhibits what impression these experiences make on them. Children who are given a lot of independences are often very loud and boisterous, which is usually the case with children from working families. Another interesting observation that I have made in students of this age group is that children from middle class families who are relatively well off, are always looking for opportunities to assert themselves and show themselves to be superiors to other students in a class. This behavior could be a result of what the students see at home or hear from their parents. In some cases, even students of this age often make groups and then stick to them.
In her book, Lareau has emphasized that, despite racial differences, it is the social, economic class of the family which will determine in the end what kind of a future the child will have. Referring to the book, the author has laid down two parenting styles – concerned cultivation which is mostly favored by middle class families and accomplishment of natural growth which is favored by working class and lower income class families. Personally I believe the achievement of natural growth is much better style of parenting because it gives the child an opportunity to assert his own nature and develop his own mindset. Parents who follow the concerned cultivation style of parenting often enforce their own ideals upon the children by either taking all the decision on them or countering the decisions the child takes.
However, I have seen that lower income families are often not able to provide an environment for the child to become self confident. That is why, although these children have the advantage of freedom to make decisions and the independence to make choices, more often than not they follow the same footsteps as their parents or other elders of the family. I have seen that children do this when they grow into adults because they feel safe with these decisions. Since they have seen their parents and families take up a career and done well enough to provide for the family and have a steady income, they find it is appealing. Basically, it is the security and safety of this decision that appeals to them; one can say that they are averse to taking a risk. Children from middle class families, one the other hand, because they have confidence in themselves are not averse to taking risks and so choose diverse career options and are not want to follow into the footsteps of their families.
That is why in conclusion it would be correct to say that there is a correlation between the family environment or the family life that children are exposed to and the careers or work outcomes these children choose when they grow up. However, I still maintain that one can always find exceptions to this.