The "helicopter parenting" phenomenon seems to be getting nuttier by the minute and it's easy to harrumph over the latest anecdote about a mother calling the academic dean of a college to ask why her child got a bad grade. As a college counselor at an "elite" private high school I often had to deal with mommies (seems like it's more often mommies than daddies) who wanted to know how their child could get an A instead of an A- so he or she could get into Brown. Or who basically ran the college process while the children lazed about in blissful torpor. These stories tend to validate our feeling that the current generation of college-aged students has become way too pampered for its own good.
Unfortunately for us, Margaret K. Nelson has written an interesting and level-headed book on the topic called Parenting Out of Control: Anxious Parents in Uncertain Times. Rather than gleefully narrating the various misbehaviors of these over-involved parents, she approaches the topic from a sociological perspective. (Nelson is a professor of sociology at Middlebury College in Vermont.) Using class divisions and technological innovation as prisms, she looks at why parents might behave the way they do and provides some clear, if incomplete, insights about why parents these days do the things they do.
Nelson bases her conclusions on a relatively small sampling of individuals she divides into "working class," middle class," and "professional middle class" parents. As a result, her brush paints a rather broad picture of child-rearing practices in each group. She writes that WC and MC parents "are...less interested in intimacy and engagement [with their children] than they are in clear rules of authority within the family." In contrast, the PMC parents she describes have "a lengthy perspective on children's dependency without a clear launching point for a grown child," and "put child rearing front and center: even in the midst of extremely busy lives, they highlight the significance and meaning they find in this activity, and they avoid shortcuts (such as playpens) that could make the job easier."
But more interesting is how Nelson contrasts the WC/MC and PMC views of their children as individuals in a way that puts most of the helicoptering onus on the PMC parents. Less privileged parents, according to Nelson, "insist that by the end of a comparatively short educational career a child should be ready to pick a career, find a job, and begin the next stage of life as a fully formed adult." They "want to encourage their children to grow...But their role involves acceptance of the particularities of their children and does not rest on a view of unlimited potential, of children who can become 'the best.'" Especially in relation to college, WC/MC parents want their children to do something productive, not play around for four years.
In contrast, PMC parents see their children as ongoing projects with unlimited potential. As a result, there's no end to the work of seeing them develop, which is why they insist on being "present" so constantly. For them, college isn't a "vocational training ground," it is a place for personal self-development: "...in lieu of job preparation, elite parents talk about the important opportunities colleges might provide for self-discovery and for gaining self-confidence. Rather than viewing college as a launching pad to independent adulthood, parents see it as a time for their children to acquire the necessary cultural and social capital to be able to seize any opportunities for status that may arise." No wonder my students' parents wanted them to go to Brown and not Tufts!
If you perceive your children as "out the door" when they turn 18, there's no need to keep a continual eye on them. As a parent, you've done your job and what results is what you've got. PMC parents have created a never-ending process that needs continual tweaking and adjusting. They see their children as extensions of themselves and their parenting, and so must always be involved. College is a place to refine their projects in the never-ending drive toward "perfection," whatever form that may take.
Nelson makes the case that technological devices such as baby monitors, security bracelets, and cell phones have changed the ways parents connect with their children, often making them more fearful, not less, and promoting a sense of needing to be continually in touch with their offspring. She notes, however, that PMC parents are less likely to rely on technology to monitor and control their children than are MC/WC parents because of their commitment to molding their children's "potential" and being intimately involved with every detail of their lives. PMC parents make calls, write emails, and so on as a natural extension of their involvement with their children; MC/WC parents are less likely to do so because they see their children as already on their way to independence.
Parenting Out of Control does a good job of delineating some of the possible sources of helicopter parenting even while it remains frustratingly shallow. It relies too heavily on Nelson's small sample and seems to lean too much on stereotypes of privileged versus non-privileged parenting and family life without offering real three-dimensional analysis. However, using class as a way to talk about families' expectations for their children and college is a fresh way to talk about the subject, and readers attuned to the relationship of college attainment to status consciousness will find Parenting a good source for further discussion and observation.
Showing posts with label American culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American culture. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Underserved Students and the Politics of the Practical
One thing that's bothered me for a while is how often low-income and first generation students are steered pretty hard toward "jobs" rather than "education" when it comes to college. I can't argue with the imperative to earn money and support yourself and your family after college, not to mention paying off student loans, but I worry that with all best intentions we may be developing a laboring class to the long-term detriment of American intellectual and national life. It may be better educated than earlier working classes, but it still smacks of a division between the privileged and non-privileged.
Jonathan Kozol wrote, "Childhood is not merely basic training for utilitarian adulthood. It should have some claims upon our mercy, not for its future value to the economic interests of competitive societies but for its present value as a perishable piece of life itself." His compassion for children is well-known, but what strikes me here is the phrase "utilitarian adulthood." Much is made of ensuring that students are able to get jobs when they graduate from college. That's well and good, but it seems to me that Latino, African American, and low-income/first-generation students are seen more in that "utilitarian" light than their more privileged white counterparts. Working to change that outlook is one reason I do what I do.
If you are a well-off white student from a good high school, it's relatively easy to consider a liberal arts education without thinking about post-college work. You may want to be a doctor or lawyer or CPA, but you are comfortable knowing that you can still major philosophy, anthropology or English, any of which ignite the old jokes like "What are you going to do, open a philosophy store?" as Mark Slouka writes in his Harper's essay, "Dehumanized: When math and science rule the school." But you still can afford to explore, take your time, or even think about going to graduate school to be an anthropologist or a historian because you're relatively sure you'll be employed at something after college. (Recent history aside.) You can major in theater because you know you'll eventually work for an investment bank anyway or if you do go into theater can rely on parents for support, at least for a little while. (I realize what a huge generalization that is, but I believe it's justified in contrast to underserved students' experiences.)
But first-generation kids get pushed toward the practical: Even if they're being encouraged to go to college, they're steered toward curricula that will end in a job right out of college. They're NOT steered toward the arts or history because the payoff isn't nearly the same. Most college advising programs I've seen advising low-income students emphasize the income-enhancing aspects of college attendance, not the intellectual stimuli or the opportunity to see well beyond one's own borders. Again, while I can't argue with more income, I can wish that we attended more to these students' minds instead of seeing them just as future laborers with BAs. Otherwise we risk their continued marginalization.
A young African American colleague recently told me about her own experience coming up through the Chicago school system. Although she is extremely good at math and was taking advanced courses at an early age, she was pushed to take a basketball scholarship at an obscure Florida college because she is also extremely tall. Even though she had demonstrated her brainpower, it was obscured by her height. Luckily she left her original college and transferred to one more appropriate to her talents, but my guess is that's more an exception than a rule. She was seen as a body, not as a mind; as a laborer, not as an intellectual.
One result of the emphasis on college as job preparation rather than life or even career development is that we continue to have a dearth of African American, Latino, and other artists and intellectuals from out of the mainstream. I've met many bright underserved students for whom the idea of "liberal arts" is a non-starter; they have to be sure they can make money right out of the gate so they can't waste time with "frills." It's hard to be comfortable studying Hispanic or Victorian literature when you feel the hot breath of necessity on your neck. But no one seems to have told them that they can live intellectual lives and have careers, and that's a shame.
Michael Roth's recent passionate defense of the liberal arts in the Huffington Post seems archaic in this context: "The cosmopolitanism of curricula at America' best liberal arts colleges is in tune with the wonderful diversity of student life. The thirst for experimentation, the ability to cross disciplinary or cultural borders, the scale of residential life -- all of these factors extend to learning outside the classroom and create vibrant communities that students remember and value throughout their lives." My guess it would leave a room full of low-income parents and students laughing bitterly--these ideas all sound like airy luxuries most people can't afford, and they'd be right. About the affordability, anyway.
But Roth (who is the president of Wesleyan University in CT) touches on some of the things that make higher education in the United States so vital and essential even without a direct link to jobs. He says "The key is that the students at these schools are developing skills, learning how to learn, in ways that will serve them for decades." They are the things that help make going to college worthwhile not just as preparation for one's working life but also for one's mindfulness of life in the world, including being a citizen in its widest sense. The differences between training for a "job" and embarking on a "career" (one implies simply laboring at a task; the other implies vocation, growth, and mobility) include developing one's ability to be imaginative, to see beyond surfaces, to make connections or see patterns among seemingly disparate things, and to be flexible. Why shouldn't underserved students be able to develop these capacities the same as their better served peers?
Of course, Americans have long been suspicious of non-practical education, going back to long before the days of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. Sitting around reading just doesn't look like work (sorry, Mr. Lincoln), so what good is it? But as we move more and more into being a nation of ideas and services rather than muscular production, we need to be sure that brainpower is valued wherever it shows up. Education is a down payment on the possible: we can't know what will happen from moment to moment much less in a year or a decade. (Not to mention how many jobs will evaporate or come to be in the next few years.) All our students need encouragement to be well-educated, not just trained.
I was surprised to learn years ago that the Olympics were once confined to amateurs because that kept working class competitors out. Only the leisure class had the time and money to train for the contests, while workers had to, well, work. Colleges have been doing their best to enable "working class" students to overcome a similar barrier but current economic and social conditions are making it hard to justify college attendance as a social good in and of itself. But practicality and ratiocination (my favorite word from an undergraduate course in American literature) can coexist and even support each other. It's not an either/or situation. If we are to have a strong and multi-varied American culture now and in the future we need to create scholars, artists, and thinkers from every corner of American life. Enabling everyone who wants it to be an "amateur" for a few precious years can immeasurably expand our collective ability to live useful, thoughtful, and adaptable lives.
Jonathan Kozol wrote, "Childhood is not merely basic training for utilitarian adulthood. It should have some claims upon our mercy, not for its future value to the economic interests of competitive societies but for its present value as a perishable piece of life itself." His compassion for children is well-known, but what strikes me here is the phrase "utilitarian adulthood." Much is made of ensuring that students are able to get jobs when they graduate from college. That's well and good, but it seems to me that Latino, African American, and low-income/first-generation students are seen more in that "utilitarian" light than their more privileged white counterparts. Working to change that outlook is one reason I do what I do.
If you are a well-off white student from a good high school, it's relatively easy to consider a liberal arts education without thinking about post-college work. You may want to be a doctor or lawyer or CPA, but you are comfortable knowing that you can still major philosophy, anthropology or English, any of which ignite the old jokes like "What are you going to do, open a philosophy store?" as Mark Slouka writes in his Harper's essay, "Dehumanized: When math and science rule the school." But you still can afford to explore, take your time, or even think about going to graduate school to be an anthropologist or a historian because you're relatively sure you'll be employed at something after college. (Recent history aside.) You can major in theater because you know you'll eventually work for an investment bank anyway or if you do go into theater can rely on parents for support, at least for a little while. (I realize what a huge generalization that is, but I believe it's justified in contrast to underserved students' experiences.)
But first-generation kids get pushed toward the practical: Even if they're being encouraged to go to college, they're steered toward curricula that will end in a job right out of college. They're NOT steered toward the arts or history because the payoff isn't nearly the same. Most college advising programs I've seen advising low-income students emphasize the income-enhancing aspects of college attendance, not the intellectual stimuli or the opportunity to see well beyond one's own borders. Again, while I can't argue with more income, I can wish that we attended more to these students' minds instead of seeing them just as future laborers with BAs. Otherwise we risk their continued marginalization.
A young African American colleague recently told me about her own experience coming up through the Chicago school system. Although she is extremely good at math and was taking advanced courses at an early age, she was pushed to take a basketball scholarship at an obscure Florida college because she is also extremely tall. Even though she had demonstrated her brainpower, it was obscured by her height. Luckily she left her original college and transferred to one more appropriate to her talents, but my guess is that's more an exception than a rule. She was seen as a body, not as a mind; as a laborer, not as an intellectual.
One result of the emphasis on college as job preparation rather than life or even career development is that we continue to have a dearth of African American, Latino, and other artists and intellectuals from out of the mainstream. I've met many bright underserved students for whom the idea of "liberal arts" is a non-starter; they have to be sure they can make money right out of the gate so they can't waste time with "frills." It's hard to be comfortable studying Hispanic or Victorian literature when you feel the hot breath of necessity on your neck. But no one seems to have told them that they can live intellectual lives and have careers, and that's a shame.
Michael Roth's recent passionate defense of the liberal arts in the Huffington Post seems archaic in this context: "The cosmopolitanism of curricula at America' best liberal arts colleges is in tune with the wonderful diversity of student life. The thirst for experimentation, the ability to cross disciplinary or cultural borders, the scale of residential life -- all of these factors extend to learning outside the classroom and create vibrant communities that students remember and value throughout their lives." My guess it would leave a room full of low-income parents and students laughing bitterly--these ideas all sound like airy luxuries most people can't afford, and they'd be right. About the affordability, anyway.
But Roth (who is the president of Wesleyan University in CT) touches on some of the things that make higher education in the United States so vital and essential even without a direct link to jobs. He says "The key is that the students at these schools are developing skills, learning how to learn, in ways that will serve them for decades." They are the things that help make going to college worthwhile not just as preparation for one's working life but also for one's mindfulness of life in the world, including being a citizen in its widest sense. The differences between training for a "job" and embarking on a "career" (one implies simply laboring at a task; the other implies vocation, growth, and mobility) include developing one's ability to be imaginative, to see beyond surfaces, to make connections or see patterns among seemingly disparate things, and to be flexible. Why shouldn't underserved students be able to develop these capacities the same as their better served peers?
Of course, Americans have long been suspicious of non-practical education, going back to long before the days of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. Sitting around reading just doesn't look like work (sorry, Mr. Lincoln), so what good is it? But as we move more and more into being a nation of ideas and services rather than muscular production, we need to be sure that brainpower is valued wherever it shows up. Education is a down payment on the possible: we can't know what will happen from moment to moment much less in a year or a decade. (Not to mention how many jobs will evaporate or come to be in the next few years.) All our students need encouragement to be well-educated, not just trained.
I was surprised to learn years ago that the Olympics were once confined to amateurs because that kept working class competitors out. Only the leisure class had the time and money to train for the contests, while workers had to, well, work. Colleges have been doing their best to enable "working class" students to overcome a similar barrier but current economic and social conditions are making it hard to justify college attendance as a social good in and of itself. But practicality and ratiocination (my favorite word from an undergraduate course in American literature) can coexist and even support each other. It's not an either/or situation. If we are to have a strong and multi-varied American culture now and in the future we need to create scholars, artists, and thinkers from every corner of American life. Enabling everyone who wants it to be an "amateur" for a few precious years can immeasurably expand our collective ability to live useful, thoughtful, and adaptable lives.
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