Last week we discussed Unequal Childhoods by Annette Lareau and her work on different parenting styles and how inequalities in childhood extend into adulthood.  I never really gave much thought about parenting styles and how they affect a child’s access to things in society.  Sure, I knew that parents who were active in their children's lives and who communicated well with them gave them an advantage in that those children knew they were loved, which can go a long way.  I just never considered labeling parenting styles or analyzing the ultimate outcomes of those styles.  I guess this is because I'm a 21-year-old female who has no immediate plans to have any rugrats of my own anytime soon.  
           Lareau discusses two main parenting styles: concerted cultivation and the accomplishment of   natural growth.  With the concerted cultivation style, parents are extremely active in their children's lives.  They play a direct role in sculpting their child's talents, opinions, and skills.  Ultimately, children raised in the concerted cultivation style are skilled in navigating various social situations and systems, have an extensive vocabulary, and they have a sense of entitlement  (ex. "I deserve to have this situation to work out in my favor).  Concerted cultivated children, aside from the positive aspects, often feel the need to be constantly engaged or they feel bored.  They are more competitive and tend to have hostile relationships with siblings.  They are often tired and have weaker ties with extended family members.  Concerted cultivation is very common among middle and upper class families.  The natural growth approach is common among the working class/poor.  With the natural growth approach, parents often have no time to actively participate in their children's activities and have to focus on making enough money to provide for basic necessities.  Natural growth children are in charge of their leisure time and often spend it with friends and family.  These children rarely question authority or directives (ex. They don't challenge their teacher's negative comments on an essay).  Natural growth children are often good at peer mediation, conflict management and resolution, creativity and spontaneity, and personal responsibility and strategizing.  While these observations are accurate, they aren't true for every family and every child.  Also, many families are a blend of these two styles.
          Basically, parenting styles affect where a child goes in life and what resources they're exposed to for personal success.  Parenting styles affect how a child feels about his or herself and how they interact with people and go about professional endeavors.  I haven't really mentioned how race plays into parenting styles (just read the book), but it's definitely an intersecting issue.  However, Lareau sums up that social class matters more than race in how well a person can move up socially or improve their life. She also discusses certain aspects that remain independent of class, such as a family's degree of organization and daily orderliness, and family rituals.
         I think Unequal Childhoods applies directly to our work at IHAD because it offers insight to the struggles that the dreamers face in their journey to better their lives.  They may not be fully aware right now of every little social aspect in their lives that will affect their social mobility, but eventually they will and they'll eventually need the vocabulary and terms necessary to give their issues a platform.

          This book is also relevant to what is currently happening in Florida and the outrage that is spreading across the country.  A black teen, Trayvon Martin, was shot dead by a man claiming self-defense.  However, the general consensus, based on witness accounts and the 911 call, is that the shooting was racially motivated because Trayvon was a young black teen wearing a hoodie at nighttime.  The man is innocent until proven guilty, but there should definitely be a HUGE inquiry into the shooting based on the evidence.  If anything, it appears to me that the shooter actively sought out Trayvon and followed him, however, nothing is easy to decipher in such a situation.  What happened to Trayvon is exactly why I think gun laws need to be improved and be stricter.  Guns cause more harm than good and especially complicate situations like this one where race and age differences are involved.  The law says you have the right to protect yourself, but it gets sticky when the shooting is unclear.  Racism still exists and our country is particularly sensitive to it.  Even though we don't know how this case will end, I think it's good the story is getting a lot of national attention because racism is something we need to keep talking about instead of sweeping it under the rug and pretending the wound is healed since we have laws that promote equality.  We still need to talk about the invisible social "laws" and workings that keep people down.

This week we watched “Waging a Living”, a film that followed various Americans’ lives and their struggle to provide for their families with only minimum wages.  Firstly, it should be established that earning minimum wage isn’t “making a living” because there is no way one person could make enough to pay for rent, health insurance, gas, utility bills, groceries, and other expenses.  People don’t live on minimum wage—they exist. 

            After our class on Thursday, I was a little aggravated by other people’s comments on the film.  That being said, I am glad that we all have different opinions because it starts the conversation and creates ideas.    The question that challenged me was about the American dream and if we are owed or if we deserve everything it encompasses.  In class, we pretty much summed the American Dream up to be the ability (or the idea of the ability) to be able to work hard and move up and out of your social class and to have all the benefits that come with that class.  The fact that our country was more or less founded on this dream is the primary reason we deserve to have it and, YES, we are owed to live comfortable lives with our hard work. 

            “Waging a Living” proved that it’s impossible to live comfortably, without excessive worry, on minimum wage.  All of the interviewees worked full-time to support their children.  One woman was a divorcee, had two children, worked as a waitress (something like $2.75/hour plus tips), and was $15,000+ in debt.  Another woman had multiple children, worked in a girls home, and attended community college part-time.  She lived on her wages, Medicaid, and food stamps—at least that was until she got a $3 raise and magically made too much to qualify.  Her state housing rent also went up in price.  She called it “hustling backwards” because the more she made, the more she stayed behind, stayed stagnant.  Making more money meant she would be spending more money (no health care meant she had to spend $175 on her son’s allergy medication and choose some other necessity not to pay).  Her situation was so dire that she couldn’t even buy her family a Christmas dinner. One man, Jerry, barely made enough to eat and pay rent and only after ten years was he able to afford a plane ticket to see his children. The financial situations of the other film participants were similar to each other: good people working hard, long hours, but staying socially stagnant.   

            So, the answer is definitely, unequivocally “yes”.  We do deserve the American Dream.  We shouldn’t have to “rethink” the American Dream.  We need to find ways to make it possible.  As human beings, we deserve dignity and comfort.  We deserve to have enough money to take a vacation or to visit family.  We deserve to be able to buy food for the holidays.  We deserve to have easy transportation to and from work (having a car shouldn’t feel like a necessity).  We deserve to pamper ourselves and to indulge.  The question, “What are we really owed?” bothered me for this reason: if we don’t have these pleasures, abilities we are merely existing and if we’re just existing, we lose the beauty of being human.
           With respect to our service learning at IHAD, I truly do believe that our dreamers deserve to live out of poverty, that their parents deserve to work hard and not feel like they're hustling backwards.  There are so many factors that come with poverty, near-poverty that contribute to academic failure and to social class stagnation.  Parents may not be as involved in children's lives if they have to work constantly to make ends meet or they may cope with stress in unhealthy ways (overeating, drugs, alcohol, abuse) or they are involved in their children's lives and their economic anxieties transfer to their children (growing up too fast).  The emotional stress that comes with economic struggle can affect young people's mentality and confidence, too.  They may question their value to society and their own ability to make a difference in their lives ("I see how hard my mom works and how it gets her no where.  Why should I try?")  It’s so important to instill confidence in these kids, so that they know what they’re capable of achieving.  They deserve to have dignity and pride.  And for the people who say it doesn’t matter if these kids ever go to college and make something of themselves and think of the economic improvement the nation will see if more people can fill more job positions.  Think of how our nation could improve with better-educated people and how our nation could compete with other nations.  A more socialist capitalist (oxymoron?) society could achieve this.  Also, an improvement in secondary public education would make a huge difference.  What would also make a major change is educating the majority of people on the discrimination and social inequities that minorities face every day.  Educating people that these social inequities are ingrained in our national fabric is the first way to tackle this task.

         All of this being said, I don’t understand why someone wouldn’t want a more socialist, educated society (socialism doesn’t mean communism or less capitalism).  Why would anyone want to deny another human being the right to live a comfortable life? A life of dignity and value?  I will admit that I’m privileged in these ideas because I’m educated and economically comfortable.  I have access to these ideas and access to the discussion of these ideas.  More people need access to these ideas, so that upward social mobility is possible.

According to many intellectuals around the world, Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed is a work that everyone should read.   I would definitely agree with those people.  Freire’s work has simple, straightforward ideas that aim to lift the oppressed (minorities, the lower class, the disabled, etc.) and ensure that everyone lives a life full of meaning and quality.  However, the West hasn’t embraced Freire’s ideas and I think this is for two reasons.  The first reason is that the West has valued its own ideals above all others and chooses not to budge (not that other cultures always make an effort to embrace Western values).  The second reason is that ever since the Red Scare, the West has been wary of anything too radically socialist (emphasis on the radical part).  For example, England, France, and Germany all have a very social component of their government that looks out for their citizens (healthcare, social security).  However, these countries still have an entrenched capitalist system with the very rich at running things from the very top.  While these countries have taken a step in the right direction when it comes to bringing the oppressed up from the bottom, they still encourage irresponsible capitalism (the US wasn’t the sole cause of the global economy’s downturn).    

So, Freire’s work is revolutionary and makes the call for dramatic social revolution so that all human beings can have a dignified life.  Great.  How do we even begin?  I don’t want to make anyone depressed by saying that this task is really hard and daunting...but it is.  Do we have more public forums?  More surveys and polls?  Before we can even brainstorm, we have to understand one of Freire’s main points: the oppressed must realize their own condition and must themselves work to improve their condition.  Privileged people helping from outside of the oppressed group can only do so much.  Someone within the oppressed needs to become a leader for their community.  The idea that change has to start from within not only applies to the self, but also to the community.