This article by Julie Schor discusses how children and adolescents are becoming the ones who are making up much of the consumer market. This is why a large majority of the advertisements that we see on TV are geared towards children. I agree with much that is said in this article. I feel as though when I was younger there were many times when I would see something on TV that I just had to have. I feel as though occurrences like that are even more likely today. However, it is the products being advertised that have changed.
There are numerous signs of commercialization of childhood presented in the article. Schor writes, “Kids can recognize logos by 18 months, and before reaching their second birthday, they’re asking for products by brand name.” Schor goes on to say, “Upon arrival at the schoolhouse steps, the typical first grader can evoke 200 brands. And he or she has already accumulated an unprecedented number of possessions, beginning with an average of 70 new toys a year.” It is obvious that commercialization is definitely prominent in the childhood of children today.
There are many different negative affects that commercialization has on children. Commercialization can affect the physical health of children in a lot of ways. For example, there are many commercials on television that advertise junk food as opposed to fruits and vegetables and because children see these advertisements on television, these are the foods they want to eat. Schor writes, “Since 1980, obesity rates for children have doubled, and those for teens have tripled. Weight-related diseases, such as type II diabetes and hypertension, are rising rapidly. Alongside the rise in obesity is excessive concern with thinness and body image and a host of eating disorders. Record numbers of girls are on diets.” It seems as though many children are finding themselves on either end of the spectrum. Either there are children, mostly girls, who are affected by the images that they see in the media and advertisements of extremely thin women and will go to great measures to look like them or there will be children who will be constantly consuming all of the unhealthy foods that they see in advertisements. Commercialization is also having a negative affect on the behaviors of children. These behaviors include smoking, drinking and doing illegal drugs. Schor says, “As early as eighth grade, more than seven percent of kids are regular smokers, and that number nearly triples by 12th grade.” Schor continues, “In the eighth grade, 14 percent of kids report that they have taken five alcoholic drinks in a row within the past two weeks. By the 12th grade, twice as many say so. Half of all high schoolers report that they currently drink alcohol. And 12 percent of eighth graders report that they have used illegal drugs within the past 30 days. Among 12 graders, that percentage rises to 25 percent.” It is astonishing to believe that children are participating in such behaviors at such young ages. In addition to physical appearance and risky behavior, commercialization also can affect the emotional and mental health of children. There are a number of different illnesses that have been affecting children. Some of these health problems include anxiety, depression, ADHD, and even suicide, to name a few.
“Children’s Share in Household Tasks”
In this article Goldschneider and Waite discuss the importance of household tasks done by children in different family settings. The article looks at the different types of tasks done by both male and female children of different ages. The article also compares how much children help out around the house in families that have two parents and those that are headed by females. An interesting point that the article shows is that much of the housework that is done by children is work that they are paid to do, which often times shows the children that this work is more of an option than duties that they are obligated to do. Goldschneider and Waite go on to make yet another interesting statement. They say, “If children, particularly boys, have little experience with the tasks associated with maintaining a home, it is difficult to expect them to feel comfortable taking them on as adults.” This point is important because today the issue of men doing housework, or lack thereof, has become a popular one. However, as Goldschneider and Waite state, how can males as adults be expected to carry out household tasks as adult men if they have a limited amount of experience when they are younger?
Similar to how it is between husbands and wives, where wives typically do the majority of the duties around the house, it is also more common for daughters to do more housework than it is for sons. Goldschneider and Waite, write, “Girls tend to spend about twice as much time on housework as their brothers, mirroring the different levels of contribution by their mothers and fathers.” However, as Goldschneider and Waite mention, sometimes it seems as though neither sons nor daughters do much of the housework because it is the mother who does the majority, if not all, of it. The amount of housework done by children can vary depending on where the family lives. For example, families that live on farms tend to have children that do more work in and around the house, whereas families that live in more urban settings tend to have children that do less work around the house. Some of the work that the majority of children, including both males and females, tend to do is washing dishes, cleaning the house, laundry, cooking and yard work. There are many different factors that go into determining how much housework is done by male and female children. For example, Goldschneider and Waite state, “Families with teenage girls report sharing five times more of these other tasks with children than do families with boys of the same age. In fact, girls ages twelve to eighteen seem to carry the largest share of housework of all children.”
As I said before, depending on the makeup of a family, whether there are two parents or it is a female headed household, is a significant factor in determining whether children are more likely or not to do housework. Obviously if a woman is the sole provider of a family, that leaves her a lot less time to do housework because she is busy working outside of the home. This is why children, both males and females, seem to be more likely to help their mothers around the house. One can only imagine what it is like to have to work forty hours a week and then have to take care of the responsibilities at home on top of it. As Goldschneider and Waite say, “Families headed by unmarried women, then, have both less money and less of the mother’s time at home than do families headed by couples.” The fact that these families are already at a disadvantage for being the ones who support their families and also for being the ones expected to take care of the home.
“Invisible Inequality: Social Class and Childrearing in Black Families and White Families”
In this article Lareau uses the concepts of organization of daily life, language use, and social connections to show how childbearing mostly varies because of the social class of a family as opposed to racial differences. Lareau among other fieldworkers conduct a study where they observe a variety of different family types in terms of racial background and social class. The purpose of this study is to see whether race or social status is more of a determinant of how a family raises its children.
As Lareau states, there seems to be more of a correlation between social class more so than racial background when it comes to the ways in which parents raise their children. For example, both Black and White middle-class parents have quite a few similarities as far as childbearing goes. Lareau writes, “The middle-class parents, both white and black, tend to conform to a cultural logic of childbearing I call ‘concerted cultivation.’ They enroll their children in numerous age-specific organized activities that dominate family life and create enormous labor, particularly for mothers. 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 their preferred form of discipline.” While there were a few minor differences among the middle-class families, overall they had a lot in common even with the different racial backgrounds. This was also the case for the working and lower-class families in the study. Even with different racial background, there were far more similarities between families of these social statuses than there were between families of similar races. This isn’t to say that in the survey there weren’t families that had similarities in terms of race, but it seemed to be more common for families who had the same social status to have more likenesses when it comes to organization of daily life, language use, and social connections when raising children. Lareau sums up the findings by saying, “The evidence shows that class position influences critical aspects of family life: time use, language use, and kin ties. Not all aspects of family life are affected by social class, and there is variability within class.” By this Lareau means that while social class is not the only aspect that affects family life and child rearing, but from the study that was conducted it seems as though social class does in fact have more of an influence when it comes to how children are raised.
“Sexuality and Gender in Children’s Daily Worlds”
According to Thorne and Luria the aspect of childhood that serves as one of the main sources of gender differences is the way in which children play with one another, both in the context of in groups of the same gender and cross-gender groups. In the study conducted in the article, Thorne and Luria observed fourth- and fifth-graders in four different schools. They wanted to see the type of interaction that took place in groups where there were just boys, groups where there were just girls and groups where there was a mixture of both boys and girls.
Thorne and Luria first discuss how it is common for children to be segregated from one another in terms of gender. Thorne and Luria write, “In general, there is more gender segregation when children are freer to construct their own activities.” So while there is interaction between girls and boys in a play type of setting, it appears as though both boys and girls prefer to play in groups that are made up of their gender only.
The ways in which boys and girls play and interact with one another tends is usually very different. Thorne and Luria state, “Boys tend to interact in larger and more publicly-visible groups; they more often play outdoors, and their activities take up more space than those of girls. Boys engage in more physically aggressive play and fighting; their social relations tend to be overtly hierarchical and competitive.” However, girls are more likely to engage in games such as “jump-rope” and hopscotch. Boys, unlike girls, are a lot more likely to participate in activities that are more organized and usually require the boys to divide up into teams.
While some may not think that studying the ways in which boys and girls play with each other, it actually appears as though the way boys and girls interact with one another as children often times will have an effect on the way in which they will interact with one another later on in life. Thorne and Luria say, “The gender arrangements and subcultures of middle childhood prepare the way for the sexual scripts of adolescence.” They go on to say, “Girls and boys, who spend considerable time in gender-separate groups, learn different patterns of interaction which, we have argued, lay the groundwork for the sexual scripts of adolescence and adulthood.” It is because of these interactions with each other as children that boys and girls prepare themselves for the interaction that they will have with members of the opposite sex when they get older.
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