Poorer parents are just as involved in their children's activities as better-off parents

[Axulus]

ron burgundy . . . shut the fuck up.

He speaks too much truth for you to handle. All his points are reasonable and seem logically sound. He's like a laughing dog that criticizes illogic coming from all sides of the political spectrum rather than just the conservative side and really attacks the core of the sloppy thinking that takes place on this board. He's also not one to let political correctness get in the way of criticizing illogic. I'm glad to have him as a member of this board, I'm learning a lot from him.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

ronburgundy,

Do you or do you not think that in the US, Poorer parents are just as involved in their children's activities as better-off parents?

 

[SimpleDon]

Well, I admit that I have to eat a bit of crow after reading this. I had assumed that poor parents weren't involved in their children's lives, but now I know that, just like me, they have one of the under-butlers give a weekly update on what they've been up to.

I learned something today.

That is horribly unfeeling of you. Good parenting requires you to take the age of the child into account.

For example. I require a weekly one page written summary for the younger children from the nanny. For the school aged children the same from the tutors.

And of course, for the teenagers and older I keep up with their antics with reports from the family solicitors, the scamps.

 

[SimpleDon]

If one were to pretend that this single study from a completely different economic and social culture actually applied to the US, the implications would be far worse for standard liberal arguments than conservative arguments.

The research suggests that poor parents spend just as much free time as wealthier parents to educate and socialize their kids, thus the claimed inability of them to do so due to longer work hours, etc. cannot be used as a valid explanation for why their kids are more ignorant, less intellectually skilled, and more likely to engage in crime.
IF poor kids are getting just as much parenting quantity, then it is more likely that poor parents are just lower quality in how they spend that time parenting or poor kids are just more prone toward low intellect and high criminality, regardless of parenting.

Note that I don't buy those implications, because I know enough to realize this study is near meaningless with regard to the US where the degree and ways in which the poor and wealthy differ is not at all similar to how the differ in the UK.

I am going to take a wild flyer here that the degree and ways that the poor and the wealthy differ in the US has everything to do with how much money each makes. How much could this be different in the UK?

 

[AthenaAwakened]

If one were to pretend that this single study from a completely different economic and social culture actually applied to the US, the implications would be far worse for standard liberal arguments than conservative arguments.

The research suggests that poor parents spend just as much free time as wealthier parents to educate and socialize their kids, thus the claimed inability of them to do so due to longer work hours, etc. cannot be used as a valid explanation for why their kids are more ignorant, less intellectually skilled, and more likely to engage in crime.
IF poor kids are getting just as much parenting quantity, then it is more likely that poor parents are just lower quality in how they spend that time parenting or poor kids are just more prone toward low intellect and high criminality, regardless of parenting.

Note that I don't buy those implications, because I know enough to realize this study is near meaningless with regard to the US where the degree and ways in which the poor and wealthy differ is not at all similar to how the differ in the UK.

How exactly are the US and the UK "completely different economic and social culture(s)?"

Just curious

I mean that is a strong and broad reaching statement bordering on hyperbole.

if you like, so as not to derail this discussion further, I would be open to spinning this question off to it's own thread.

 

[SimpleDon]

Here's a study that found parental educational behavior was a stronger indicator of a child's cognitive ability than social economic status: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3c4TxciNeJZSEJPOXgxLTlrNTA/view?pli=1

Do you have any studies that explain the desperate need of some to blame the poor for the existence of poverty?

Or the cognitive inability to understand this simple proposition, poverty is a simple economic problem of low wages, the solution is to raise wages.

 

[ronburgundy]

If one were to pretend that this single study from a completely different economic and social culture actually applied to the US, the implications would be far worse for standard liberal arguments than conservative arguments.

The research suggests that poor parents spend just as much free time as wealthier parents to educate and socialize their kids, thus the claimed inability of them to do so due to longer work hours, etc. cannot be used as a valid explanation for why their kids are more ignorant, less intellectually skilled, and more likely to engage in crime.
IF poor kids are getting just as much parenting quantity, then it is more likely that poor parents are just lower quality in how they spend that time parenting or poor kids are just more prone toward low intellect and high criminality, regardless of parenting.

Note that I don't buy those implications, because I know enough to realize this study is near meaningless with regard to the US where the degree and ways in which the poor and wealthy differ is not at all similar to how the differ in the UK.

I am going to take a wild flyer here that the degree and ways that the poor and the wealthy differ in the US has everything to do with how much money each makes. How much could this be different in the UK?

Well, that is in fact a very wild, unreasonable, and improbable claim. What it assumes is that rich and poor people differ solely in terms of their current income and do not differ and any other aspect of their live's (past or present) or anything about their social and cultural surroundings or that of their parents and prior generations.
In addition, even "mere" differences in current income have no reliable and stable impact upon behavior. Those differences interact with larger social, cultural, and economic factors around the person (level of publicly funded goods and services being just one such factor).
The assumption you and all supporters of the OP are making is that income differences have only universal context-independent effects on behaviors as complex and multi-determined as parenting. IT is and assumption that is no less absurd than assuming that all poor people parent in the same way or that all rich people parent in the same way.

ronburgundy,

Do you or do you not think that in the US, Poorer parents are just as involved in their children's activities as better-off parents?

What is most important is that I actually bother to think, thus I don't believe in either position without minimally valid relevant evidence of which none has been provided in this thread. As I mentioned in my first post, liberals very often claim that poor parent' do not spend equal amounts of quality time with their kids, not because they are "bad" or "lazy" but because they spend so much time working, stressing about money issues, and commuting to and from work and supermarkets and quality schools which are all claimed to not be near their homes.
Unlike the OP, that is a valid point typically used to argue for the countless and less obvious ways in which kids born into poverty are disadvantaged.
Most of the same folks who readily make such arguments are now claiming that poor parents are no less able to spend quality time with their kids. So, which is it?
Personally, I find the hypothesis that the poor spend less quality time far more theoretically plausible, especially for the working poor (as opposed to the unemployed poor). In addition to the reasons and time consuming factors listed above, their is the fact that they have more kids. Not only does each kids consume time that detracts from one-on-one time with any one of them (and most education time requires that), but having siblings means the parents can delegate some of those responsibilities (especially sports playing) onto the siblings. Only-children will be many times more likely to beg their parent to play catch than a kid who has a more ready and willing sibling to play with. Only kids are much more common among wealthier parents.
Oh, and then there is single parenting (also much more common among the poor), which directly cuts parental access in half.
Oh, and then there is the difference in whether extended family members are highly accessible, which reduces the need for parents to fulfill various child needs/requests. I'm pretty sure that live-in grandparents, uncles, etc.. are more common with lower income families. This may be in large part due to greater porportions of immigrants and African-Americans among the poor, but that is all part of the point. Their are both immediate circumstance and long standing cultural differences tied to ethnicity and migratory status on which the rich and poor tend to differ. So, it would be pretty damn surprising if they were same in their parenting behaviors, either in quantity of particular behaviors or the important details of what type of behaviors these are.

All of this seems so beyond common sense and so obvious via a moments honest reflection that its hard to believe that anyone supporting the relevance of the OP doesn't realize all these factors that make parenting time less likely among the poor. It seems such support of the OP is a vacuous knee-jerk reaction to cheer lead for the notion that poor people are not lazy and neglectful parents, based in the wrongheaded notion that less ability to put in quality parenting time implies they are lazy and neglectful.

BTW, I haven't even gotten to the fact that the OP study uses such invalid and unreliable measurement methods that it cannot even say anything useful about UK parents. I'll address that in another post.

 

[ronburgundy]

Here's a study that found parental educational behavior was a stronger indicator of a child's cognitive ability than social economic status: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3c4TxciNeJZSEJPOXgxLTlrNTA/view?pli=1

Do you have any studies that explain the desperate need of some to blame the poor for the existence of poverty?

Ironically, it is the OP and the claims of the study that undermines arguments that defend the poor against such arguments. As I pointed out a couple times already, having more income related obstacles to quality parenting time is a good (non victim blaming) reason why poverty persists across generations and why poverty predicts negative outcomes for kids like school dropout, low intellectual aptitude, and higher rates of almost all violent crimes.

Claiming that poor parents can and do spend equal quality time with their kids gives additional weight to claims that the problem is therefore in their inability to use the time they spend effectively or their kids inability to benefit from quality time due to some inherent deficit.

Racists and conservatives who favor genetic accounts of poverty would love for the OP study to be valid. Fortunately for the rest of us, it isn't (see post above)

 

[AthenaAwakened]

I am going to take a wild flyer here that the degree and ways that the poor and the wealthy differ in the US has everything to do with how much money each makes. How much could this be different in the UK?

Well, that is in fact a very wild, unreasonable, and improbable claim. What it assumes is that rich and poor people differ solely in terms of their current income and do not differ and any other aspect of their live's (past or present) or anything about their social and cultural surroundings or that of their parents and prior generations.
In addition, even "mere" differences in current income have no reliable and stable impact upon behavior. Those differences interact with larger social, cultural, and economic factors around the person (level of publicly funded goods and services being just one such factor).
The assumption you and all supporters of the OP are making is that income differences have only universal context-independent effects on behaviors as complex and multi-determined as parenting. IT is and assumption that is no less absurd than assuming that all poor people parent in the same way or that all rich people parent in the same way.

ronburgundy,

Do you or do you not think that in the US, Poorer parents are just as involved in their children's activities as better-off parents?

What is most important is that I actually bother to think, thus I don't believe in either position without minimally valid relevant evidence of which none has been provided in this thread. As I mentioned in my first post, liberals very often claim that poor parent' do not spend equal amounts of quality time with their kids, not because they are "bad" or "lazy" but because they spend so much time working, stressing about money issues, and commuting to and from work and supermarkets and quality schools which are all claimed to not be near their homes.
Unlike the OP, that is a valid point typically used to argue for the countless and less obvious ways in which kids born into poverty are disadvantaged.
Most of the same folks who readily make such arguments are now claiming that poor parents are no less able to spend quality time with their kids. So, which is it?
Personally, I find the hypothesis that the poor spend less quality time far more theoretically plausible, especially for the working poor (as opposed to the unemployed poor). In addition to the reasons and time consuming factors listed above, their is the fact that they have more kids. Not only does each kids consume time that detracts from one-on-one time with any one of them (and most education time requires that), but having siblings means the parents can delegate some of those responsibilities (especially sports playing) onto the siblings. Only-children will be many times more likely to beg their parent to play catch than a kid who has a more ready and willing sibling to play with. Only kids are much more common among wealthier parents.
Oh, and then there is single parenting (also much more common among the poor), which directly cuts parental access in half.
Oh, and then there is the difference in whether extended family members are highly accessible, which reduces the need for parents to fulfill various child needs/requests. I'm pretty sure that live-in grandparents, uncles, etc.. are more common with lower income families. This may be in large part due to greater porportions of immigrants and African-Americans among the poor, but that is all part of the point. Their are both immediate circumstance and long standing cultural differences tied to ethnicity and migratory status on which the rich and poor tend to differ. So, it would be pretty damn surprising if they were same in their parenting behaviors, either in quantity of particular behaviors or the important details of what type of behaviors these are.

All of this seems so beyond common sense and so obvious via a moments honest reflection that its hard to believe that anyone supporting the relevance of the OP doesn't realize all these factors that make parenting time less likely among the poor. It seems such support of the OP is a vacuous knee-jerk reaction to cheer lead for the notion that poor people are not lazy and neglectful parents, based in the wrongheaded notion that less ability to put in quality parenting time implies they are lazy and neglectful.

BTW, I haven't even gotten to the fact that the OP study uses such invalid and unreliable measurement methods that it cannot even say anything useful about UK parents. I'll address that in another post.

And your beliefs about the better off parents? And remember, time scheduled with classes, tutors, and camps is not time spent with children.