parenting

Since the turn of the millennium, Americans over 55 have been giving more financial help to their adult children than ever before, with much of this assistance going to support things like their grandchildren’s education, living expenses, and medical bills. However, this growth in intergenerational giving has forced many grandparents to tap into their own savings to pay it forward.

In an interview for The Atlantic, sociologist Kathleen Gerson explains that sometimes grandparents provide help to the younger generations, even if doing so comes at a cost to themselves.

“Financial managers advise the elderly to hold on to the money they’ve saved, to use it to care for themselves in old age, to avoid becoming the responsibility of their children”… But many grandparents have a hard time listening to this advice, she said, because they can see that their children and grandchildren are even more financially insecure than they are.”

Robust social programs benefiting senior citizens, like Social Security, likely provide a sense of economic security that makes them feel capable of giving. Yet, while the social safety net has all but eliminated poverty among the elderly, dwindling support for social programs supporting children and families has left children in a more precarious position than their elders. As a result, Gerson explains, grandparents across the United States are “stepping into the void” to provide for the younger generations.

Giving money serves two functions, Gerson said—it’s “a way of expressing love,” and a way to help ensure “that your children’s children will have a decent spot in the world.”

But not all grandparents bear an equal burden in supporting the youngest generation. African American and Latino grandparents are more likely than white grandparents to spend money on schooling, to help out with living expenses, and to indulge their grandchildren when they ask for things. And, working and middle class Baby Boomers are more likely than wealthier peers to tap into their own savings or delay retirement.

Because grandparents are unequally equipped to provide financial support, doing so takes a greater personal toll on some than on others. Paradoxically, if we want to improve seniors’ quality of life in their golden years, an effective way to do it is by bolstering social programs to prevent poverty among the young.

Whether or not children should get an allowance and have responsibilities around the house is a perennial question of parenting in the United States. Even within agreement about allowances, experts debate whether an allowance works best as positive reinforcement for the completion of chores or as a tool to teach children about saving and spending money. Unsurprisingly, when sociologists are asked to weigh in, they focus in on two core themes of sociology: community and inequality.

In a recent article in The Atlantic, Heather Beth Johnson hit on both of these themes. She notes that allowance, especially paying children for the completion of chores, is something that happens in affluent households more than non affluent ones.

“This isn’t happening in poor families,” she says. “They’re not like, ‘If you take care of your cousins, I’m going to pay you for it.’ It’s just expected that you would take care of your cousins if your cousins needed taking care of.”

That expectation that you do what others require you to do is part of a larger commitment to community. Johnson explains that individuals embedded in society have always had responsibilities to others, particularly to those in their family and other close communities. She worries that when parents frame helping the household as something that is deserving of a reward it may erode commitment to community obligations and increase entitlement among their children.

“When we pay [kids] to do things that humans have always had to do as participants of communities and families,” she says, “it sends them some sort of a message that they are entitled to [an] exchange for these things.”

Parents looking to do things differently may find it useful to look toward anthropology and child development for inspiration, since David Lancy has observed an almost universal desire to help in children approximately 18 months of age. Starting young may allow families to foster the expectation of helping others that has been the backbone of communities all over the world.

After the holidays, many parents breathe a collective sigh of relief. The holidays and their many challenges — travel, presents, and time with extended family — are so stressful that they make people wonder whether raising children has always been this hard. A recent The New York Times piece by Claire Cain Miller confirms that parenting has indeed gotten more time-consuming and expensive. Miller draws upon an arsenal of sociological research to illustrate how and why parenting has become so relentless.

Much of the pressure parents feel stems from wanting to pass on advantages to their children — especially since American children today are less likely to be as affluent as their parents. According to Phillip Cohen,

“As the gap between rich and poor increases, the cost of screwing up increases. The fear is they’ll end up on the other side of the divide.”

As a result, parents use “intensive parenting,” a child-rearing style that demands a great deal of their own time and resources. Sharon Hays’ describes intensive parenting as “child-centered, expert-guided, emotionally absorbing, labor intensive and financially expensive.” And according to Jennifer Glass, intensive parenting is rooted in the American view of child rearing as an individual — not societal — task, though it has begun to gain popularity in England and Australia.

But not all parents engage in these efforts equally, nor are they expected to. Jessica Calarco explains that intensive parenting allows affluent white mothers to ensure their children remain advantaged in society. Middle-class black mothers also use intensive parenting strategies, but for different reasons. According to Dawn Dow,

“They’re making decisions to protect their kids from early experiences of racism. It’s a different host of concerns that are equally intensive.” 

The demands of intensive parenting affect mothers’ lives far more than fathers. Liana Sayer’s research on American time use diaries shows that the time women spend parenting cuts into their sleep, time alone with their partners and friends, leisure time and housework. Moreover, while fathers today have increased the amount of time they spend with their children, mothers still spend significantly more.

So, drawing on research by over a dozen sociologists, Miller shows us that we are not wrong to find intensive parenting problematic. Not only does this parenting style disproportionately burden lower income families — and mothers in particular — but we’re not even sure it is effective in passing advantages on to the next generation. By stressing the importance of individualistic approaches to parenting, we fail to seek structural solutions that could ease the burdens of working mothers. In the words of sociologist Caitlyn Collins, intensive parenting “distracts from the real questions, like why don’t we have a safe place for all kids to go when they’re done with school before parents get home from work?”

Originally published March 6, 2018.

In the United States, poor parents face intense scrutiny for their purchasing decisions, especially for buying unhealthy food for their children. New research sheds light parents’ decisions to buy or not buy junk food for their kids. In a recent op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, Priya Fielding-Singh explains that junk food consumption is an emotionally-rooted decision for impoverished parents.

Fielding-Singh observed the food-purchasing habits of 73 families. Families experiencing poverty honored their children’s requests for junk food more often than affluent parents. For poor families, junk food was one of few affordable luxuries. It was sometimes the only chance for parents to say “yes” to something their kids asked for. Fielding-Singh notes,

“For parents raising their kids in poverty, having to say ‘no’ was a part of daily life. Their financial circumstances forced them to deny their children’s requests — for a new pair of Nikes, say, or a trip to Disneyland — all the time. This wasn’t tough for the kids alone; it also left the poor parents feeling guilty and inadequate.”

More affluent parents, on the other hand, had the means to grant these more indulgent requests. Saying “no” to junk food was their way of encouraging their children to have better dietary habits, as well as discipline and willpower. This doesn’t mean poor parents were unconcerned with their children’s nutrition. According to Fielding-Singh, “poor parents honored their kids’ junk food requests to nourish them emotionally, not to harm their health.” So, health disparities are not just about lacking healthy options or resources. This research shows that we also need t0 consider the emotional side of decision-making related to health. 

All parents want the best for their children, but what happens when the best for their own child means disadvantaging many more? In an article recently published in The Atlantic, sociologist Margaret Hagerman shares the story behind her new book, White Kids: Growing Up With Privilege in a Racially Divided America. She spent two years interviewing and observing upper-middle-class suburban white families in a midwestern city in the United States with one goal: to find out how white children learn about race. Hagerman spent a significant amount of time with 36 children between the ages of 10 and 13, and analyzed how homework, games, and conversations with friends and family members influenced their interpretations of race. Hagerman says,

“One of the things I was really struck by was how frequently some of these children used the phrase That’s racist or You’re racist. They were using this word in contexts that had nothing to do with race: They were playing chess, and they would talk about what color chess pieces they wanted to have, and then one of them would say, “Oh, that’s racist”—so things that had to do with colors, but also sometimes just out of the blue, instead of saying, “That’s stupid.” These kids have taken this phrase, That’s racist, and inverted it in a way such that it’s become meaningless.”

Hagerman also observed affluent parents calling schools to demand the best teachers in certain topics and pulling their students out of a public school to enroll them in a private one after a “racist incident.” These actions serve as reinforcing agents, propagating the idea that “your own child is the most important thing”—a belief that Hagerman thinks should be reconsidered by all.

“When affluent white parents are making these decisions about parenting, they could consider in some way at least how their decisions will affect not only their kid, but other kids. This might mean a parent votes for policies that would lead to the best possible outcome for as many kids as possible, but might be less advantageous for their own child…I don’t have any grand answer, but I think people could think in bigger ways about what it means to care about one another and what it means to actually have a society that cares about kids.”

While the catastrophic flooding by Hurricane Florence made recent headlines, the emotional trauma it caused — particularly for children — may be overlooked. A growing approach to natural disasters as “social phenomena” with social consequences sheds light on how storms, earthquakes, and wildfires impact the emotional health of young survivors. In a recent article in The Atlantic, sociologist Alice Fothergill discusses her research on the emotional turmoil caused by Hurricane Katrina.

Fothergill finds that lack of communication with friends and family during a storm leads to tremendous anxiety for children. However, children who stay together with family in unsafe conditions also suffer. She explains,

“In a lot of studies, we find that kids who experience the intensity of the event do have a harder time coping. It really is important to evacuate and not be in it. Being with family is important, [but so is] not feeling like they’re in a life-threatening situation.”

The good news is, emergency responders are learning. Fothergill notes that during Hurricane Katrina, many kids in foster families and their biological parents completely lost contact and family records were destroyed in the storm. However, during Hurricane Sandy, the Department of Children and Families in New Jersey was able to learn from these mistakes.

Fothergill says one of the best things to do is to allow children to help prepare for the storm — for example, let them have a say in what comes in the car and what stays at home — so they feel like they have some control over the situation. While Fothergill notes that children are especially vulnerable to trauma, they are also very resilient; for this reason, showing them how to prepare and rebuild after a deadly storm can make all the difference.

While U.S. society often valorizes the nuclear family — two-parent households with children — many families do not fit this model. In honor of Mother’s Day this past weekend, Ms. Magazine highlighted the long history of collective mothering in the United States. Social scientists demonstrate how the individualized, biological model of mothering emphasized in the United States can be a problem:

“Many feminist sociologists have pushed back against narrow understandings of parenting. Sharon Hays argues that pressures for mothers to “do it all” though intensive mothering styles alienates and emotionally depletes women…Sharing care-work can alleviate some demands of what sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild calls the ‘second shift,’ or the household labor usually left to women after the formal workday ends.”

Further, certain groups rely more heavily on collective mothering. For African Americans, collective mothering has been important for survival:

“Patricia Hill Collins describes how blood mothers, ‘other mothers,’ grandmothers and community mothers have collectively cared for Black children since slavery, playing integral roles in Black community survival. The mainstream media tends to associate these mothering practices with working-class and poor mothers of color, but Collins points out that Black middle-class mothers also rely on community mothering to protect their children from everyday forms of racism.”

Mothers who immigrate to another country for work also depend on collective parenting — often by family and friends — if their children remain in their country of origin. While many Native American families rely on collective child-raising practices as well, the U.S. government rarely recognizes them as valid forms of parenting. Social workers have taken away thousands of Native American children and placed them into mostly White, nuclear families.

So, when we celebrate Mother’s Day, we must keep more than individual mothering in mind.

“Boy or Girl?” — It’s one of the most common questions people ask new parents. But some parents are trying to avoid that question altogether by raising their children in a “gender open” or “gender affirmative” environment. A recent article in New York Magazine highlights the decisions made by these parents — including some parents who are sociologists.

Kyl Myers is one of these parents. For Myers, “the point was not to have a genderless child.” Instead, Myers wanted her child to come to their own understanding of gender without viewing toys and activities as “boy” and “girl” things. Myers’ concerns are certainly valid — according to Elizabeth Sweet’s research, toys are more gendered today than they were during all of the 20th century. Myers goes on to explain,

“A part of why we are parenting this way is because intersex people exist, and transgender people exist, and queer people exist, and sex and gender occur on a spectrum, yet our culture loves to think people, all 7 billion of them, can and should be reduced to either/or.”

Andrea — also a sociologist — had a partner that was in the middle of a gender transition at the time, which led them to talk extensively about gender and parenting strategies. Andrea believed her child’s anatomy did not matter for their gender, yet her partner was changing their body to match their gender. Andrea says,

“We know that people often experience gender through their bodies and through the meaning that our society has attached to bodies…In our society, breasts are feminized, so it makes sense for someone like my partner to have their breasts removed. When we say gender is a social construct, I am certainly not arguing that bodies and hormones play no role in people’s gender identification.”

These parents — informed by social science research that shows the importance our society places on a gender binary — are doing their best to break out from this binary to include more opportunities for children to explore their gender identities. As Myers says,

“You have to give people the benefit of the doubt that they are trying to love their children in the way that they know best, and that really looks different for different families. This is how we know to love our child best.”

Parents of all backgrounds want their children to receive the best education possible, but what sets wealthy “helicopter parents” apart is that they have the resources to ensure it happens. A recent article in The Washington Post describes the role of “college concierges” — affluent parents that meticulously map out important college opportunities for their child — in widening the gap between their own children and children from working-class families, whose parents may not know how to guide their child through the college process.

The article draws from a study by social scientists Laura Hamilton, Josipa Roksa, and Kelly Nielsen about the role parents play in college students’ lives. The authors find that female students from wealthy families graduate at a rate of 75 percent, while their counterparts from low-income families only graduate at a rate of 40 percent. To explain this discrepancy, the authors give an example of two students interested in dentistry — one from a wealthy family accepted into her top-choice dental school, and the other from a poorer family who was not admitted. 

“[The] one from an affluent family…had reviewed applications years earlier and knew what she needed to do to get in…. [The other student’s] parents didn’t know what was required — such as job shadowing — nor did they realize her slipping grades would disqualify her from getting admitted. She ended up as a dental assistant making $11 an hour, a job that didn’t even require a bachelor’s degree.”

Instead of criticizing affluent parents’ behavior, the article’s author suggests we should direct our energy towards providing guidance to students without it, in order to close success gaps like the one illustrated in this study. 

 “Simply providing more aid or more help in getting admitted isn’t enough…. Schools also need to put in place programs — and pay for them — that help middle- and lower-income students find the right mentors, get spots in study-abroad programs and internships, and navigate the often confusing and tricky journey to graduation.”

In the United States, the media often portrays marginalized groups through tropes and stereotypes, but these depictions rarely represent the diversity inherent in any group.  A recent article in Slate demonstrates that queer parents are no exception. The author draws on sociological work to examine how the gay-parenting community may reinforce this uniform image of gay parents in their social circles.  

Sociologist Suzanna Walters argues that the gay community has limited its own image, members, and freedom in exchange for social acceptance. In her book, she explains,

“Media evinces a form of homophobia…focusing on acceptance of gay parents as heterosexual clones,” — in particular, the “ideal heterosexual”(white, upper-middle class, etc.). Parents who didn’t fit a certain mold were sidelined to present a comforting image to straight society.”

Megan Carroll noticed a similar pattern after attending gay parent groups in Texas, California, and Utah. Carroll noticed that fathers of color were severely underrepresented in these groups, and many parents of color told Carroll they felt “isolated” and without a space to “help their children connect to their race as well as their father’s sexuality.”  

Gay dads with kids from previous heterosexual marriages faced a similar feeling of “otherness.” Gay dads by divorce were perceived as “relics of a bygone era,” while adoption or surrogacy were viewed as modern forms of parenting. Even groups that advertised themselves as being inclusive often fell short, including a group in Texas. Carroll remembers,

“when you showed up in person, the community was very insular towards adoption and surrogacy dads.”

Parenting groups and resources are an important tool for any caregiver, and as Carroll’s work outlines, parenting communities need to consider how to make these spaces more inclusive for all types of parents. She concludes,

“Segregation of gay fathers by pathway to parenthood is not an accident…It’s very much rooted in these networks fostered within the gay parenting community. If we’re not creating resources specifically for gay fathers from different backgrounds…it’s very unlikely they’re going to benefit from the resources already in place.”