Childhood

The first article that addresses childhood, written by Barrie Thorne and Zella Luria, is entitled "Sexuality and Gender in Childeren's Daily Worlds." This article takes a look at the aspect of childhood experience that serves as one of the main sources of gender differences and how this aspect operates.

The aspect of childhood experience that serves as one of the main sources of gender differences is gender segregation. "Gender segregation, the separation of girls and boys in friendship and casual encounters, is central to daily life in elementary school" (138). In school settings there is extensive spatial separation between girls and boys. "At lunchtime in elementary and middle schools there is a "boy" table and a "girl" table" (138). "Because girls and boys interact in same-sex groups, each group develops its own identity and way that they act, which is what lead to the gender differences" (138).

"Boys tend to interact in larger and more publicly-visible groups. They more often play outdoors and boys engage in more physically aggressive play and fighting. Their social relations tend to be hierarchical and competitive" (139). "Girls on the other hand interact in smaller groups or friendship pairs. Girls more often engage in turn-taking activities like jump-rope, and they less often play organized sports. Girls engage in conflict, but it takes a more indirect form than boys' aggressive conflict" (139).

In there separate gender groups, girls and boys learn somewhat different patterns of bonding. "Boys share the arousal of group rule-breaking, while girls emphasize the construction of intimacy and themes of romance" (147). "Gender-divided social worlds is the underlying theme that leads to all these differences between boys and girls" (147). Gender segregation is the aspect that is a main source of difference and it operates in school and social settings.

The second article on childhood, written by Frances Goldscheider and Linda Waite, is entitled "Children's Shares in Household Tasks." This article looks at how much housework children do in contemporary families and how it varies by child's gender and type of family.

Goldscheider and Waite open by stating, "The tasks children do are still rigidly divided by gender in most families, with girls doing different and more tasks around the house than boys," (809). "Girls tend to spend about twice as much time on housework as their brothers. It is often the case, however, that neither boys nor girls gain much experience doing household tasks because in many families their mothers do almost all of them" (809). "The old view that children should help there parents has given way to an expectation that parents must exert themselves to ensure that their children grow up to be successes. As a result, the ideal American child has been transformed from a "useful child" to a "useless child," (809). Contemporary children do less housework than previous children because nowadays parents are more concerned with how there children perform in school. Young people can now claim heavy school assignments as an adequate excuse for why they cant do some of there chores and parents accept this.

"Children take relatively little responsibility for most household tasks. Overall children contribute a relatively small proportion of total household labor-15 percent" (811). Other findings were important to go along with this statement. "The more children in the family the more the mother reports sharing housework with children as a group" (811). So a type of family that is more likely to have the children do more housework is a big family. Children's age and gender also influence the amount of task sharing. "As children get older, they clearly become more involved in household chores. Families with teenage children share substantially more housework with their children than families with only preteens. But the biggest difference by age and sex are in female chores" (812).

"Families with teenage girls report sharing five times more of these tasks with children than do families with boys of the same age. Girls ages twelve to eighteen seem to carry the largest share of housework of all children" (812). However, "young adult males contribute no more to housework than do preteen children" (812).

"Children who live in a mother-only family play a key role in the household economy" (814). "Comparing the children's share of household responsibilities in intact families and in mother-only families shows that children in mother-only families take nearly twice as much responsibility for household tasks as those in standard families" (814). Another type of family is that with children who live with their mother and a stepfather. "Those children also take a greater role in household chores than do children who live with both their biological parents. However, the differences between stepparent families and other two-parent families are much less than between mother-only families and never-disrupted families" (816).

"Looking at these three types of families suggests very strongly that the composition of the household has a considerable influence on the exposure of children to household tasks" (817). What is clear is that in most contemporary families, children are participating less in household tasks than they used to.

The third article focusing on childhood and childrearing was written by Annette Lareau and is entitled, "Invisible Inequality: Social Class and Childrearing in Black Families and White Families." This article takes a look at how models of childrearing differ in regards to class and race.

"Middle class parents, both white and black, engage in concerted cultivation by attempting to foster children's talents through organized leisure activities and extensive reasoning" (747). "They enroll their children in numerous organized activities that dominate family life. The parents view these activities as transmitting important life skills to children. Middle-class parents also stress language use and the development of reasoning and employ talking as there preferred form of discipline. This creates a cult of individualism within the family and an emphasis on children's performance" (748).

"Working-class and poor parents engage in the accomplishment of natural growth, providing the conditions under which children can grow but leaving leaving leisure activities to children themselves" (747). "These parents believe that as long as they provide love, food, and safety, their children will grow and thrive. They do not focus on developing their children's special talents. Working-class and poor children participate in few organized activities and have more free time and deeper ties within their extended families. These parents also use directives instead of reasoning. Some working-class and poor parents place more emphasis on physical discipline than do the middle-class parents" (749).

"Middle-class children, both white and black, gain an emerging sense of entitlement from their family life. Race had much less impact than social class. The pattern of questioning and intervening among the white and black middle-class parents contrasts sharply with the definitions of how to be helpful and effective observed among the white and black working-class and poor adults" (747). "Working-class and poor children did not display the same sense of entitlement. Instead there pattern of the accomplishment of natural growth encourages an emerging sense of constraint" (747).

With both the concerted cultivation and accomplishment of natural growth approaches, three key dimensions can be distinguished (some of which I have already touched on a little): the organization of daily life, the use of language, and social connections. I have already addressed the different organizations of daily life. "With language use, the concerted cultivation approach states that children contest adult statements and have extended negotiations with their parents" (753). With the natural growth approach, "it is rare for children to question or challenge adults and children generally accept directives from there parents with little negotiation" (753). The dimension of social connections can be looked at as well. "In the concerted cultivation approach (middle-class) children have weak extended family ties and children are often in homogeneous age groupings. In the natural growth approach (working-class) children have strong extended family ties and children are often in heterogeneous age groupings" (753).

Lareau expected race to powerfully shape children's daily schedules, but this was not evident. In terms of enrollment in organized activities, language use, and social connections, the largest differences between the families she observed were across the social class, not racial groups.

The final article that focuses on childhood and childrearing was written by Juliet Schor and is entitled, "America's Most Wanted: Inside the World of Young Consumers." This article takes a look at the signs of commercialization of childhood and how this commercialization affects children's well-being.

A person does not have to look far to see how today's children have become immersed in the consumer marketplace. "At age one, she's watching teletubbies and eating the food of its "promo partners" Burger King and McDonalds. Kids can recognize logos by 18 months, and before reaching their second birthday, they are asking for products by brand name. Experts say that by age three or three and a half, children start to believe that brands communicate their personal qualities, such as they are cool, or strong, or smart" (1). "By age six or seven girls are asking for the latest fashions, using nail polish, and singing pop music tunes" (1). "Eight-year-old boys are enjoying Budweiser commercials, World Wrestling Entertainment, and graphically violent video games" (2). These are all signs of commercialization of childhood. One of the main causes of these things is television. "The average eight to thirteen year old watches over three and a half hours of television a day. American children view an estimated 40,000 commercials annually" (2).

Schor states, "The commercialization of childhood is being driven by social trends, but underlying them all is a marketing juggernaut characterized by growing reach, effectiveness, and audacity," (2). "A main part of the marketing mentality is industry language. Those at whom the ads are directed are targets" (2). The ads are created specifically in a way that will pull consumers in. And the thing is, it is working. Kids are buying. "Every half-second, somewhere in the world another Barbie is sold. A fifth of McDonald's business is happy meals" (4). There is now a thriving children's market segment. "Children are becoming shoppers at an earlier age. Six to twelve year olds are estimated to visit stores two to three times per week and to put six items into the shopping cart each time they go" (5). "These days, when kids ask, they ask for particular brands. The increased knowledge of brands is a predictable outcome of kids' greater exposure to ads. Increasingly, the brands kids want aren't just any brands. They crave designer duds and luxury items" (8). "The change in the experience of childhood that has attracted perhaps most attention is kids' heavy involvement with electronic media, prompting some to poist a new postmodern childhood, driven by television, Internet, video games, movies, and videos" (11).

"So in the past 15 to 20 years we have witnessed big changes in what kids have been doing and watching. How has it affected them?" (12). The first thing that Schor looks at is nutrition. "Diets have gotten far out of line with recommended nutritional standards. Most kids are eating the wrong foods and to much of them. Children eat excessive quantities of advertised food products (like McDonalds) and not enough fruits, vegetables, and fiber" (12). On the other side is the excessive concern with thinness and body image and a host of eating disorders. "Record number of girls are on diets, and they are beginning to diet at an increasingly young age" (12). This is a result of the media exploiting incredibly thin models, and young girls then believe that is how they should look as well. Nutrition is not the only problem. "Kids are smoking, drinking alcohol, and taking illegal drugs at alarming rates" (12). "Children and youth are increasingly suffering from emotional and mental health problems" (13). Taken together, these findings are not comforting. "They show that American children are worse off today than they were 10 or 20 years ago" (14).

Schor states, "The deterioration in well-being suggests that some powerful negative factors are at work," (14). "One of them most likely is the upsurge in materialistic values. Children define there self-worth in terms of the things they own and wear. In a study, more than half the children agreed that when you grow up, the more money you have, the happier you are. The children in this study also said that the only kind of job they want when they grow up is one that gets them a lot of money" (14). "Psychologists have found that these kinds of materialistic values undermine well-being, leading people to be more depressed, anxious, less vital, and in worse physical health. In light of all these findings, the changing outlook of childhood is worrisome" (14). Childhood has become much to commercialized.