Some of the parents—and these were often those who had grown up in com­fortable surroundings—described their childhoods in the language of a magic idyll replete with steadfast stability, safety, and security. These parents did not exclusively characterize the contemporary problems they face in terms of the array of external dangers—predators, child abusers, kidnappers—that are now […]

Lets begin with the shared perception of the increased difficulty of parenting today. Paula Brown, a white, professional middle-class mother to two teenag­ers, lives in the suburb of a southern city, where she holds an administrative position at the local university and her husband is employed as an execu­tive in an insurance company. As she […]

Are the Good Times Gone? A s Sarah Johnson and I sat in her sunny North Carolina kitchen on an unseasonably warm April day, Sarah jokingly warned me that if I con­tinued to occupy my seat, her daughter might include me in the mural she was painting. All joking aside, Sarah, an Asian American, professional […]

Concerns about the future are reflected in the somewhat contradictory lan­guage with which the professional middle-class parents discussed the aspira­tions they hold out for their children. They spoke about their kids “finding a path that interests them.” Theoretically, the parents suggest, this path can go in a number of different directions. Eve Todd’s daughter might […]

If we can anticipate some of the effects that parenting out of control might have when it takes the form of pressure under a microscope, we still want to explore the roots of these new controlling designs. Where have they come from, and why have they become so central? I have argued that an interest […]

As might be expected from professional middle-class parents’ statements about extracurricular activities, the goals of a higher education, and delayed launching, they view the future toward which they are guiding their children quite differently than do less privileged parents. Three examples can illustrate the distinctive goals of the elite parents. I begin with Carol Clark, […]

Working-class and middle-class parents view a college education quite differ­ently than do their more privileged peers, and they anticipate that their job as parents will be completed earlier. Not surprisingly, given that college rep­resents a more significant financial sacrifice for these less privileged parents, they insist that by the end of a comparatively short educational […]

Professional middle-class parents are also aware that they are extending their own engagement in their children and that doing so represents a significant break from the practices of the past. Maria Ascoli is a stay-at-home mother of two; her husband has a degree in engineering, which he has parlayed into a position with a major […]

Parents from different socioeconomic classes had different visions of what a college education should offer their children. Professional middle-class parents who make efforts to ensure that their children are headed for high-status edu­cational institutions do not expect those institutions to be vocational training grounds.22 To the contrary: in lieu of job preparation, elite parents talk […]

More and More Education Regardless of the demographic characteristics of the interviewed parents— their social class location, racial/ethnic identification, region of the country, marital status, age of children—they look toward higher education for their own children as a significant basis for securing an advantaged future. This is not an extraordinary group of parents. The National […]