Anita Mayer, a middle-class resident of rural Texas and mother to four children, used a garden image to explain her view of parenting: “I think children are like plants, that they’re predestined flowers to whatever they’re supposed to be, and you’re just the good gardener who provides a decent environment, . . . and they become who they are meant to be. So I don’t have to make them be who they are.” Ajnita might be a more engaged cultivator than might be suggested by Annette Lareau’s phrase “accomplishment of natural growth” (used with working-class and poor parents): she wants to be a “good gardener” of her children.8 But Anita also believes that her children are “predestined” to be who they will be: their characters are fixed, and her role is relatively minimal, as summed up in the notion of a “decent environment.” Another white, middle-class mother explained that she believes that “kids come as their own entities” and that it is the obligation of parents to accept those entities while teaching children “‘yes’ and ‘no’ in order for them to develop that moral compass.” She continued, “I never appreciated [and] I did not gravitate to the parents who let their kids do whatever they wanted. I felt it was okay to say no and move on.” Christopher Rodriguez also spoke about the necessity for “correcting [his son] in the manner he needed to be corrected” and listed as his concerns that his son be “respectful to his uncles and aunts and elders and that type of thing.” Like others, Christopher tacked on a view about the proper relationship between parents and children: “We’re his parents, we’re not his friends, and that’s just the way it is. We’re the ultimate decision makers and that’s it.”
These less privileged parents want to encourage their children to grow; they want to garden well. 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.” These parents do not wait for transgressions but instead establish concrete rules and discrete expectations early on. Nor do they blend love with unmitigated trust. Even if they sometimes give a pro forma nod to trust, they almost immediately qualify it. As one mother said, “I do like to give them freedom in decision making and trust when I can.”
In action, this approach might be less demanding of parents and children than that enacted by the professional middle class—not because it involves ignoring children (as Lareau sometimes implies), but because of its clarity about rules and about children’s developing personalities.9 Like the clearly painted line on a road, narrow limits make visible transgressions. Without fear that they are stunting their children’s potential, parents can accept them as they are while seeking to improve their behavior through correction.