After the reading and discussions of the book Unequal Childhoods, I was curious how everyone felt about the two child-rearing practices discussed: concerted cultivation & natural growth. After reading this it really made me think about the way I was raised, and the effects it has had on me as an individual. So I was wondering what everyone else thought.
What do you think are some of the positives and negatives of each style? Are there any other factors besides a family's social class that contributes to which parenting style they choose? Can a child be raised somewhere in between the two ways?
I've often heard the elderly in my family talk about how youth "these days" aren't like they use to be (referring mostly to their sense of respect & entitlement) and it really made me think. Have children and teenagers really changed over the last fifty or one hundred years? And if so, do you think concerted cultivation or natural growth has contributed to this?
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I grew up in a middle class family living in the suburbs, and therefore can mostly identify with the middle class families in "Unequal Childhoods." My sister and I have very structured sports driven lives, which we loved. Looking back I can see both the positives and negatives to this kind of lifestyle. Like Annette Lareau, the author says, we didn't know how to entertain ourselves most of the time, and because of this we were bored a lot of the time when we had down time. Also, we had no children on our part of the street and no racial differences in our neighborhoods and school. Because of this we didn't get the experiences that come with cultural diversity. This I don't like because I love different cultures and studying them.
ReplyDeleteI think a child can be raised in between the two ways, but at the same time they have to be more concerted cultivation or natural growth. Even though I was raised middle class, I am really close with a lot of my family. They mostly live in the area, but even the ones that live farther away we still see and talk to on a fairly regular basis. I think being middle class doesn't mean that your family always takes a back burner to organized activities. But, I do believe even though I have familial support from relatives, I was still raised middle class. So I think there can be overlap, but overall I think a person is either mostly concerted cultivation or natural growth.
I also grew up in a middle class home. I was constantly being carted off to various activities, incuding sports, dance, piano lessons, and play dates. I lived in a mostly white neighborhood as well. After reading the chapters in the book i reliazed how "middle class" I was growing up and that my parents definitly used concentrated contivation on me. There are some downsides for instances like Melissa said, being bored on down time. Also, i was so busy all the time that i didn't have the time to take in life and just stop and smell the roses.
ReplyDeleteI do think there is an inbetween. My family is very small so we are very close with aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. I saw and talked to me extended family alot was I grew up. I don't think alot of people are all concentrated contivation or natural growth, but your definitly mostly one then the other.
I also grew up in a middle class home all of my life. Growing up, I was constantly involved in some sort of activity such as dance, softball, soccer, piano, and cheer. Most of my days were scheduled out for me from school to the activities I needed to go and do. I think I was raised somewhere in between but a little more towards the concerted cultivation style. The downside of being raised the concerted cultivation style is not knowing what to do with yourself when they have free time. I think that many people can be raised in between the two ways, but may be a little bit more of one of them than the other. I think there are many factors that contribute to parenting style they choose such as finance, social class, and personal preference of how the parents want to raise their kids.
ReplyDeleteI as well grew up in a middle class neighborhood with really involved parents. The children in my family always came first and our needs were very important. I think I grew up more under the concerted cultivation group, but I also was and still am very independent and I think that comes from my parents giving me the freedom to make my own choices. My mom and dad always say that whatever choices I make will affect me and I will have to put up with the outcomes. I was given freedom, but I still had rules and got in trouble for breaking them. I was able to roam free throughout my neighborhood as long as I told my mom or dad where I would be. I believe growing up under concerted cultivation allows people to be more prepared for certain aspects of the real world, but I also feel that growing up under natural growth allows children to roam free and find their independence. There should be a little bit of both in parents teaching styles in my opinion, but a little more concerted cultivation than natural growth. Children up till a certain age need a sense of direction and a sense of security, but once that security is over they need to know how to cope on their own and have a sense of independence.
ReplyDeleteI believe that there is definitely middle ground between concerted cultivation & natural growth. I for example grew up in a middle class family, and attended private school, but I moved around a lot as a child, although I attended to same school, and had the same friends from school, my life outside of school was never constant. This led me to "explore" around the neighborhood, and meet the kids that lived around me. I grew up with structured activities, sports all year long, church activities, girl scouts etc, but when I had free time, I had free range of what I could do, I didn't have to constantly ask if I could go outside or to the neighbors or to the park down the street or when I had to be back.
ReplyDeleteThis aspect is probably in part due to how my parents were raised. They had more freedom for lack of a better term to go places and do things with out their parents worrying quite as much as ours did/do.
I think that concerted cultivations positive aspect would be the verbal and negotiation skills.
For natural growth I think the clear line of adult respect, but this method did not really show the questioning, understanding aspect of that boundary.
I think that you can have a good mix of concerted cultivation and natural growth. For me, My parents were divorced at a young age. My mom wanted me to do a lot of things on my own, to help me out when I grow up when I was on my own she said. So she had a more natural growth style of raising me. My dad then wanted me to always have the best things available to me at all time. He would always do things for me if I wanted something, always drive me to my formal play activities, so for me at least, a combination of both styles can be used to raise a child.
ReplyDeleteI was born into a poor middle class, however over the years my parents have invested alot through their business and now we stand in the upper middle class. As a toddler I would say that I was born into a natural growth, but when my parents became financially stable my family shifted towards the more concerted cultivation. As a toddler I was involved in one activity, ballet, but as I started to get older I was exposed in participating: piano, viola, cheer, after school learning programs, and korean school all at the same time. The disadvantage of growing up in the concerted cultivation style is that I hardly had free time, and I never got to to experience “the other side,” -natural growth. However, I am very fortunate that my parents were able to financially support my sister and I through these extracurricular activities. It has helped me be responsible, organized, driven, and confident. A child should be raised in between the two styles, concerted cultivation and natural growth, however, learning more towards the concerted cultivated style. I would have to agree with McKenzie, children should have some direction and security in their life, but once they reach a certain age I believe that the parents should let them be more independent.
ReplyDeleteThere are defiantly different factors that influence and child up bring and growth other than social class. I know for me one of the factors was growing up in a religious family. I learned about right and wrong in a different way than other children in multiple different social classes. Parenting styles come from many social factors; how the parents were brought up, religion, culture, and traditions. All of these factors can tie into social class, but social class isn't the only factor in raising a child.
ReplyDeleteI feel like within the last 50 years, children and teenagers really have changed. Sometimes I look around at the generation I am a part of and at times I feel ashamed. It's sad to say that our generation is known to be less respectful. I truely believe that even 50 years ago, teenagers had much more respect than those teenagers of today. I cant exactly say that those kids back then were so much better and didnt get in trouble, but I just think that they had more respect towards others around them, and espeically adults. Not only respect, but responsibility. Way back when, young kids were required to work as well. Work around the house or even have a job to help out the family. Now a days it seems that kids are more lazy. Once they turn 16 they dont want to get a job becuase they know their parents will spoil them. Im not trying to generalize and say this is in only high calss families, but even in low class families, that live at the poverty line. If I go back to my hometown, there are kids you know belong to low income houses, yet you see them with nice and expensive material things, and the kids dont work for it, the parents do. I cant brag that I am so much better than anyone in my generation, all im saying is I realy think that times have changed and it has cuased us to be more lazy and less responsible.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in a poor working class family where my parents had typical 9-5 jobs, so when i was younger, I got to spend a lot of time with my parents. The idea of having structured activities did not really cross our minds when I was younger. However, my family began their own small business, so as I grew up, I saw my parents less and less, all the while, they encouraged me to participate in structured activities since we did not spend as much time together. So to relate this to Unequal Childhoods and the styles of parenting, I grew up with a Natural Growth parenting style, but then transitioned into a Concerted Cultivation.
ReplyDeleteI was born and raised in a upper middle class family. In the book Unequal Childhoods I think that I did associate myself with the Tallinger family. I do think that their schedule was a little bit over board with the amount of formal activities but I could relate to them and their lives. I have always been involved in formal activities and never seen different in my family. I am the youngest of 4 child and the only girl so watching my brothers play sports and go to camp was just natural. I thought all children did this. I do believe a child can be raised somewhere inbetween the two styles. I know my parents both grew up in working class families. They pushed themselves and ultimately put themselves into great jobs and a better social class. Even though my parents had the money and could put us through all the activities we wanted we still had to "want" to participate in those activities. We were never forced and my parents always made sure we were doing things outside of practice.
ReplyDeleteI do remember doing alot of formal activites in my childhood but I also remember that my parents always made sure I had free time to hang out with my friends and just be a kid. I think my parents did a great job of balancing our activites and made sure that our sports did not over take our family's entire life. I know that I was raised with alot of priviledge and equality in my family but I think that is a good thing when parents listen to their children. I felt like it gave me great confidence and the erdge to ask questions and learn.
I too grew up in an upper-middle class family. But for me, I didn't have structured activities or sports until later in my life. My daily life consisted of school and play, of which the play was interacting with the children in my neighborhood. Because I lived in a large neighborhood, there was always somebody to play with. But at the same time, there wasn't a lot of diversity in the neighborhood, but there was a lot of differing social classes. While my parents didn't force me to do any outside activities, they made sure that I was always playing with the other children in my neighborhood (not watching TV and playing video games). While that part of my life was not structured, every other aspect of my life was. My parents made academics #1 on their list. And for a while, too, I attended a private school. But I think that my upbringing has a lot to do with how my parents were brought up. My grandparents didn't have a lot of money, so they made my parents deal with what they had: their neighborhood. My parents were never in sports until they were older and able to pay for their involvement themselves. So, from that, I believe that my parents were willing to pay for any activities that I would have liked to be involved in, but didn't push me into them. They were content with me just playing outside, and it wasn't until the end of middle school that I really got involved in sports, band, and other things. Ever since then, they have been really supportive of me whether I choose sports or not and cheer for me even if I am not performing my best. From this, I believe that I was raised with both styles, both concerted cultivation and natural growth. While I would consider concerted cultivation the main style present in my life, I think that it is a good thing to have both present. It makes it so children can both learn on their own, but have the guidance of a parent whenever they need it. And both natural growth and concerted cultivation can both be a good thing, depending on the way you look at it.
ReplyDeleteWell for me, I was born into a working class family, so money was alwasys an issue that was brought up. Growing up, I was not involved in any organized activities for two reasons. One I was not really interested in any of them, but also whenever I did gain an interest in a certain activity I did not really tell my parents because I knew that there was no extra money for me to go and do those activities. This was especially true considering that my parents also had four other kids to raise. I was, and am, very aware of anything I want to do or get because I know that my parents are working really hard to get the money that they have and I know they need it for more important things. I guess my lack of participation in activites was my doing because I am sure that if I told my parents that I wanted to do something they would find a way to support me through it (as is the case with coming to school here at Linfield). So I guess I can say that I was definitely raised by natural growth. I see that my aunts and uncles are raising there kids in this same way and I think it all comes from the fact that they were born and raised in Mexico, and in Mexico everything is more "laid back". Kids play outside with relatives or friends, there isn't so much of the organized sports or activities going on. There are definite positives and negatives to both styles that we've kind of talked about during lecture. In concerted cultivation kids are more open to talk to adults, this could kind of turn on the parents though when their children are always wanting to debate something that the parent has said. On the other hand though, kids in natural growth don't learn those communication skills really. In terms of the other question, I agree with what Jessica was saying that teenagers and kids nowadays are less respectful of others. I even see this with my younger sister, the way she kind of acts towards her elders, I just kind of think even to when I was younger, I would never do those kinds of things. The times have just really changed, and I think they will continue to change.
ReplyDeleteI would agree with Mitch and others that there can be a mixture of natural growth and concerted cultivation in certain circumstances. Not only does it have to just occur with children with divorced parents but also with parents who are together and have different approaches to bringing up their child. My father wanted to have me try as many options sports wise by signing me up for formal activities even when I might not wanted to do them. On the other hand, at the same time my mother would push me to do what felt right for me and not just to please my father. So I feel that in most families there is almost always a balancing act of the two child raising approaches.
ReplyDeleteThis question really made me think about the way I was raised. I came to the conclusion that I was raised in between these two types or growth. My parents were very involved in my activities but they also let me learn about things on my own I also had to get to my activities by myself sometimes in order to be able to participate in them. My parents worked a lot and were not able to schedule anything to accomodate my own schedule. I had to be indipendent in this aspect and learn to do several things on my own but they were there to help me through tough problems.My parents and I have always considered ourselves in the middle class but although we are better off that other people they have always taught me to think of others before myself and to not be selfish. So in this case our social status didn't interfere with the fact that they chose to raise me in between the two practices. I also feel like if you raise your children to either extreme there will be certain aspects that they will lack. For example if you just focus on the concerted cultivation some of these children wont be able to enjoy their freedom and their childhood because they will be raised as to much of "little adults". In the other hand, if you raise your kids only in the natural growth side they will never feel like they have support and they will probably be less prepared to face adult decisions. A balance between these is necessary to have all the skills that we need to be successful and that we need to have a balance of skills in our lives.
ReplyDeleteTo me the ideal might be a combination of both concerted cultivation and natural growth. I believe it is important to have early cultivation in life because it is crucial to later success in life and it teaches the individual to speak up for themselves and confidently interact with adults.
ReplyDeleteWhen they grow up to be adults, they need to be able to figure out how to make use of their own time. They need to be able to independently figure out their interests and pursue them. It is important to use natural growth inside the family unit, but when outside of it you need concerted cultivation to survive. Kids that are raised in a concerted cultivation parenting style become used to adults taking their concerns seriously, and so they grow up with a sense of entitlement, which gives them a sense of confidence. This gives these kids an advantage later in life and in the workplace. Kids raised in natural growth parenting might be nicer, happier, and more polite, but because of the manner in which they were raised, they are put at a disadvantage in the measures that count in contemporary american society.
Maybe look at your responses and ask the WHY question behind them. For example, what are the pros and cons of both the different types of child rearing? What are the different functions (manifest and latent) of them? What leads to the different types of raising kids? Is it mostly social class? or what else could it be?
ReplyDeleteJust some more thoughts to think about when you're answering some of these questions.
This book confused me at first because growing up my parents were more concerted cultivation people, but I grew up in a natural growth environment. All the kids that were natural growth were in the poorer classes, which is what I was, but I was raised with more concerted cultivation. I'm just wondering if there are going to be any kids in the book that were raised the same? Or if anyone else in class was raised like that?
ReplyDeleteOne thing I did notice about the case studies in this book is that each of the children, at least the ones we've read about, are clearly raised by either one method or the other. There aren't really any in-between cases. This might have been done intentionally by the researcher to contrast natural growth and concerted cultivation, or to more easily adapt her research to a textbook with clear examples. But I do think that many if not most children are raised via a combination of the two methods. There is a clear set of characteristics that define concerted cultivation, such as participation in structured activities, limited interaction with extended family, and a sense of entitlement amongst the children, and a set of characteristics for natural growth, such as a clear parent-child boundary, a lot of free play, and issued directives. Most of us, however, I think had a childhood that had characteristics from both of these lists.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Lauren. I too, noticed the clear distinction between methods presented in the case study. During the school year I was definately in a "concerted cultivation" environment with activites scheduled every evening and games on weekends. However, during the summer I spent the majority of my time in my neighborhood playing with kids around my age. The reason why I think I was raised this way is during the school year my parents only had to find entertainment for me a few hours of the day. During the summer, they let me roam around the niehgborhood instead of trying to orchestrate a summers worth of activities. I think my parents chose to raise both me and my sister this way because they were raised in both end of the spectrum. They made a "happy medium" of the two extremes. It is interesting how the author finds positives in both of the mathods of child rearing but finds more negatives in the natural growth method of child rearing.
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