Upstairs Downstairs: How Children Get Raised, by Social Class

[lpetrich]

Not Everyone Has the Tools to Become Rich: How Our Childhood Shapes Our Ability to Succeed | Alternet noting this research: Social Class Culture Cycles: How Three Gateway Contexts Shape Selves and Fuel Inequality - Annual Review of Psychology, 65(1):611

Some early 1990's research comparing two groups of baby monkeys.

1. Those whose mothers could easily find food, mothers who could easily spend a lot of time with those babies.
2. Those whose mothers spent so much time finding food that they had little time to spend on those babies and often neglected them.

The results were tragic. The second group of babies grew up with noticeable despair and anxiety issues. Their brains literally looked different. Their brain cells couldn't regulate emotions like their healthier peers'. Once they became adults, the second group of monkeys was shy, clingy, weak and socially awkward. They had trouble making friends, and they never became leaders. They were forever scarred—and their potential forever stunted—by their distracted mothers.

JSTOR: Child Development, Vol. 65, No. 5 (Oct., 1994), pp. 1398-1404
Influences of environmental demand on maternal behavior and infant development. [Acta Paediatr Suppl. 1994] - PubMed - NCBI
Adverse early experiences affect noradrenergic and serotonergic functioning in adult primates - Biological Psychiatry

Cruel? Maybe. But rhesus monkeys are smaller and faster-growing than we are, making it easier to do precisely-controlled experiments on them.  Harry Harlow was known for similar sorts of experiments, with similar sorts of results, so these results are not unprecedented.

Back to the Alternet article.

In a way, the same experiment is taking place in American society today. Some mothers have easy access to the basic necessities of life —food, shelter, clothing, transportation, healthcare—but many do not. Millions of mothers live paycheck to paycheck, working multiple jobs and long hours, leaving them too busy and too exhausted to give their children the same attention as their wealthier peers.

The difference is so drastic that children raised in poverty have brain activity that looks like it's been damaged by a stroke. Study after study show that these early scars last long into adulthood, affecting everything from job prospects to marital happiness.

From that Annual Review of Psychology article, as summarized in the Alternet article,

First, higher-income parents encourage their children to follow their dreams. They encourage critical thinking and support expression of likes, dislikes, feelings, and thoughts, and then give them opportunities to pursue those interests. Lower-income parents tend to emphasize toughness and pride in the face of adversity. They emphasize rules that must not be broken, and then let the children figure out the rest on their own.

Schooling follows the same patterns.

From there, the children go to school, where higher-income children are given opportunities to work independently, think creatively and ask questions. Their parents take an active role, challenging practices that they disagree with. Their teachers treat them like adults and reward students who speak up and take initiative.

Lower-income children usually find themselves in a more regimented environment. They walk through metal detectors and aren't trusted with basic classroom equipment. Their parents want to be involved, but they don't assert themselves. Their teachers demand respect and reward students who show deference.

When they grow up and enter the workforce, people with higher-income parents tend to have learned leadership skills, while people with lower-income parents tend to only do what they are told and try to stay out of trouble.

What's interesting here is that the higher-income approach is like a common stereotype of touchy-feely liberalism, while the lower-income approach is more like the conservative ideal that one must have no initiative outside of obeying authority figures.

The damage of poverty is visible as early as kindergarten - Vox

A big part of the American Dream is being able to climb the ladder and land higher than your parents. But that climb starts when people are just small children, according to new research, and getting off on the wrong foot has lifelong consequences.

In a new article in the spring issue of the Princeton University journal The Future of Children (and highlighted by the Brookings social mobility blog), researchers show that poverty is directly correlated to kindergarten performance. Children who live in poverty have far lower performance than their richer peers across a variety of measures, and those who live in near poverty in turn have dramatically worse performance than middle-class peers. The poorest kids, for example, are less than one-third as likely as middle-class kids to recognize letters.

Research has shown that an early head start creates better and better educational outcomes down the road, as the effects build on each other and make future learning easier.

Rice University School Literacy and Culture -- The Thirty Million Word Gap

On average, children from families on welfare were provided half as much experience as children from working class families, and less than a third of the experience given to children from high-income families. In other words, children from families on welfare heard about 616 words per hour, while those from working class families heard around 1,251 words per hour, and those from professional families heard roughly 2,153 words per hour. Thus, children from better financial circumstances had far more language exposure to draw from.

In addition to looking at the number of words exchanged, the researchers also looked at what was being said within these conversations. What they found was that higher-income families provided their children with far more words of praise compared to children from low-income families. Children's vocabulary differs greatly across income groups. Conversely, children from low-income families were found to endure far more instances of negative reinforcement compared to their peers from higher-income families. Children from families with professional backgrounds experienced a ratio of six encouragements for every discouragement. For children from working-class families this ratio was two encouragements to one discouragement. Finally, children from families on welfare received on average two discouragements for every encouragement.

Here again, the higher earners fit the touchy-feely-liberal stereotype, while the lower earners is more like the conservative ideal of punitive parenting.

 

[RavenSky]

Looks like an excellent argument for a guaranteed minimum income

 

[lpetrich]

Looks like an excellent argument for a guaranteed minimum income

I don't see what the connection is. I'm not saying that there isn't one, only that it's not quite clear to me.

 

[RavenSky]

Looks like an excellent argument for a guaranteed minimum income

I don't see what the connection is. I'm not saying that there isn't one, only that it's not quite clear to me.

If, as the sources you have presented indicate, the lack of resources during early childhood development - causes deficits in adulthood outcomes, then providing at least a minimum of resources would help alleviate those detrimental outcomes.

The difference is so drastic that children raised in poverty have brain activity that looks like it's been damaged by a stroke. Study after study show that these early scars last long into adulthood, affecting everything from job prospects to marital happiness.

If poor parents did not have to work multiple jobs to provide the barest necessities, then those parents would be able to provide more time and resources to their children (and their children's schools). It would perhaps not be to the level that wealthier parents can provide, but it could help to minimize the disparity in outcomes.

Moreover, it seems from the articles you've posted that this is a multi-generational cycle. By providing a guaranteed minimum income to cover the "basic necessities of life —food, shelter, clothing, transportation, healthcare", presumably - if the studies are correct - society will be improving the outcomes of those children in adulthood, and thereby breaking the cycle. This seems to me to be far more cost-effective in the long run, too.

Your post is in social science, so I certainly don't want to derail it into a political discussion. I just found the articles very interesting (thank you for posting them) and immediately thought of the benefits of application

 

[Trausti]

 

[lpetrich]

What genetic confounding? Trausti, why don't you describe to us what genes to look for? Or which control sequences or anything like that? Trausti, it should not be very difficult to do so.

 

[Trausti]

You can't escape your genes. In my practice as an attorney, I've engaged with a number of geneticists concerning allegations that birth injury caused a child to have cognitive or behavioral deficits. In every instance, the first question is how are the parents? In frank discussion, they'll tell you that the acorn doesn't fall too far from the tree. If the parents are a bit dim, it shouldn't be surprising that the children may be a bit dim. And if you're a bit dim, lower socioeconomic status would be the expectation not the exception.

And the article and other references in the OP don't support the hypothesis, i.e., it's nurture uber alles.

First, higher-income parents encourage their children to follow their dreams.

As any parent can tell you, children will do what they want. Who hasn't been acquainted with someone in life whose parents made them do sports, or take piano lessons, or whatever the parents wanted to craft their child into? But once childhood ended, that person quit those activities because they hated them. Now look to those parents who let their children be, and the child took up the sport, instrument, or study of whatever they wanted. And excelled. Parental involvement didn't matter.

To further the point, the US government spends billions on head start, where early-age presumably economically disadvantage children get lots of attention.

Head Start Gains Found to Wash Out by 3rd Grade

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/01/09/15headstart.h32.html

Mother nature is a bitch.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Looks like an excellent argument for a guaranteed minimum income

Except an awful lot of it is simple neglect, not an inability to spend enough time with the kid.

 

[Angry Floof]

nm

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Looks like an excellent argument for a guaranteed minimum income

Except an awful lot of it is simple neglect, not an inability to spend enough time with the kid.

Evidence?

 

[Trausti]

Except an awful lot of it is simple neglect, not an inability to spend enough time with the kid.

Evidence?

Do latch key kids exhibit the same supposed deficits?

 

[ronburgundy]

What genetic confounding? Trausti, why don't you describe to us what genes to look for? Or which control sequences or anything like that? Trausti, it should not be very difficult to do so.

Why do you demand identification of precise genetic mechanisms when you are fine with accepting incredibly vague, unspecified abstract socialization mechanisms? Can you describe what the precise neurological mechanisms are that respond to social environment and cause brain development effects? (hint: you cannot, because the science is nowhere near allowing for such mechanistic precision).

All of the human data you present is merely correlational. Your presumption that the causality is parenting is not science and no more theoretically plausible than genetic causality of a combination.

 

[ronburgundy]

Except an awful lot of it is simple neglect, not an inability to spend enough time with the kid.

Evidence?

The burden of evidence is equally on those claiming that the human data showing mere correlations is due causally to an inability to spend the time rather than other plausible mechanisms, and that is the assumptions needed to draw any inferences about the impact of providing a minimum income.

For example, if that assumption about the causal importance of insufficient time to interact with offpring is valid, then children of the poor who are unemployed/under-employed and thus have more time to spend with their kids should be better of than working poor or even than middle-class kids with full time working parents.

Odds are that while some kids would benefit from their parents having more time to spend with them, others would see no benefit or even harm from more time parents that are shiitty (either as parents or people generally) regardless of how much time they have for parenting.
In addition, there are the potential damaging effects on kids of seeing intake of goods and resources that is disconnected from amount of work and effort. IOW, providing free money introduces many other variables besides increasing potential parenting time that may or may not be used effectively, and some of those other variables could have negative offsetting impacts. I am not claiming what the net impact would be, just that there is no valid basis to infer from the data presented that a guaranteed minimum income would have net positive impact.

 

[lpetrich]

The racial parenting divide: What Adrian Peterson reveals about black vs. white child-rearing - Salon.com

Black parenting is often too authoritative. White parenting is often too permissive. Both need to change.

The author is a US black woman.

In college, I once found myself on the D.C. metro with one of my favorite professors. As we were riding, a young white child began to climb on the seats and hang from the bars of the train. His mother never moved to restrain him. But I began to see the very familiar, strained looks of disdain and dismay on the countenances of the mostly black passengers. They exchanged eye contact with one another, dispositions tight with annoyance at the audacity of this white child, but mostly at the refusal of his mother to act as a disciplinarian. I, too, was appalled. I thought, if that were my child, I would snatch him down and tell him to sit his little behind in a seat immediately. My professor took the opportunity to teach: “Do you see how this child feels the prerogative to roam freely in this train, unhindered by rules or regulations or propriety?”

“Yes,” I nodded. “What kinds of messages do you think are being communicated to him right now about how he should move through the world?”

And I began to understand, quite starkly, in that moment, the freedom that white children have to see the world as a place that they can explore, a place in which they can sit, or stand, or climb at will. The world, they are learning, is theirs for the taking.

Then I thought about what it means to parent a black child, any black child, in similar circumstances. I think of the swiftness with which a black mother would have ushered her child into a seat, with firm looks and not a little a scolding, the implied if unspoken threat of either a grounding or a whupping, if her request were not immediately met with compliance. So much is wrapped up in that moment: a desire to demonstrate that one’s black child is well-behaved, non-threatening, well-trained. Disciplined. I think of the centuries of imminent fear that have shaped and contoured African-American working-class cultures of discipline, the sternness of our mothers’ and grandmothers’ looks, the firmness of the belts and switches applied to our hind parts, the rhythmic, loving, painful scoldings accompanying spankings as if the messages could be imprinted on our bodies with a sure and swift and repetitive show of force.

The same class divide here also.

She later states:

Many a black person has seen a white child yelling at his or her parents, while the parents calmly respond, gently scold, ignore, attempt to soothe, or failing all else, look embarrassed.

I can never recount one time, ever seeing a black child yell at his or her mother in public. Never. It is almost unfathomable.

So from a conservative standpoint, these American blacks are much better at parenting than these American whites.

 

[lpetrich]

What genetic confounding? Trausti, why don't you describe to us what genes to look for? Or which control sequences or anything like that? Trausti, it should not be very difficult to do so.

Why do you demand identification of precise genetic mechanisms when you are fine with accepting incredibly vague, unspecified abstract socialization mechanisms? Can you describe what the precise neurological mechanisms are that respond to social environment and cause brain development effects? (hint: you cannot, because the science is nowhere near allowing for such mechanistic precision).

A total failure of a comeback. It's essentially denying that there is such a thing as socialization. Consider that ronburgundy is fluent enough in written Modern English to understand my posts and compose intelligible posts. Is it 100% genetically programmed?

 

[lpetrich]

In addition, there are the potential damaging effects on kids of seeing intake of goods and resources that is disconnected from amount of work and effort. IOW, providing free money introduces many other variables besides increasing potential parenting time that may or may not be used effectively, and some of those other variables could have negative offsetting impacts. I am not claiming what the net impact would be, just that there is no valid basis to infer from the data presented that a guaranteed minimum income would have net positive impact.

So families should never rely on sources of income like

• Inheritances
• Savings
• Investments
• Insurance payments
• Court-settlement payments

These are all sources of income that are disconnected from work, and by ronburgundy's arguments, these have very debilitating effects.

 

[ronburgundy]

In addition, there are the potential damaging effects on kids of seeing intake of goods and resources that is disconnected from amount of work and effort. IOW, providing free money introduces many other variables besides increasing potential parenting time that may or may not be used effectively, and some of those other variables could have negative offsetting impacts. I am not claiming what the net impact would be, just that there is no valid basis to infer from the data presented that a guaranteed minimum income would have net positive impact.

So families should never rely on sources of income like

• Inheritances
• Savings
• Investments
• Insurance payments
• Court-settlement payments

These are all sources of income that are disconnected from work, and by ronburgundy's arguments, these have very debilitating effects.

First, I never said that income disconnected from work has debilitating effects. I said that some negative effects are plausible and thus their is no basis to infer that the net effect of free checks to give everyone a guaranteed minimum income would have a net positive impact.

Second, only the inheritances are disconnected from work. Savings, investments, and insurance payments are all the result of one's own actions to use the prior income one has worked for to a long-term positive use.
Court-settlements are being compensated for liable losses to what one has worked for.

IOW, they have zero in common with being handed a free check for doing nothing but existing.

As for inheritances, it is extremely plausible that kids who get inheritances at early ages experience some negative developmental impacts.

The bottom line is that free money to parents is not at all the same variable parents spending more quality time with their kids, thus there is no scientific basis to draw any inferences about the positive effects of free money to parents.

 

[ronburgundy]

Why do you demand identification of precise genetic mechanisms when you are fine with accepting incredibly vague, unspecified abstract socialization mechanisms? Can you describe what the precise neurological mechanisms are that respond to social environment and cause brain development effects? (hint: you cannot, because the science is nowhere near allowing for such mechanistic precision).

A total failure of a comeback. It's essentially denying that there is such a thing as socialization. Consider that ronburgundy is fluent enough in written Modern English to understand my posts and compose intelligible posts. Is it 100% genetically programmed?

Nothing in your reply has any logical relation to what I wrote. I don't deny socialization at all, rather you deny genetics and demand a hypocritical double-standard of physical causal mechanism that you do not demand for socialization explanations.

 

[ronburgundy]

Oh, and you conveniently deleted the part where your thesis predicts that kids on public assistance whose parents are un/under-employed should be better socialized than kids whose parents who work full time.

I bet dollars to donuts that the exact opposite is true.

 

[lpetrich]

Libby Anne of Love, Joy, Feminism: Positive Parenting

Positive parenting focuses on raising children to be capable, independent, compassionate adults rather than on instilling obedience and compliance. Positive parenting sees children as individuals with needs of their own and focuses on cooperation and mutual respect between the parent and child. Positive parenting rejects corporal punishment and tends to minimize punishment in general, seeking instead to encourage good behavior and foster the child’s self-determination and understanding of natural consequences.

I adopted positive parenting when my first child, a daughter, was about a year old, and it completely transformed my relationship with her. No longer a contest of wills, parenting has become a cooperative enterprise filled with mutual respect and surprises along the way. For everything I’ve written on positive parenting, click here.

I should note that my experiences with and thoughts on positive parenting fall against the backdrop of having been raised on the strict authoritarian discipline methods of Michael and Debi Pearl, as enshrined in their child rearing manual, To Train Up A Child. To read more about my thoughts on the Pearls and their methods, click here

What's interesting here is her recognition of these two styles of parenting.

Obedience, Empathy, and the Laundry Hamper from Libby Anne:

Every parent wants their children to learn certain values and exhibit certain behaviors. It’s just that just what those values and behaviors are varies. The pew survey found that consistently conservative parents tend to see teaching religious faith and obedience as most important while consistently liberal parents instead value teaching empathy, curiosity, tolerance, and creativity.

noting Teaching the Children: Sharp Ideological Differences, Some Common Ground | Pew Research Center for the People and the Press

Which supports my assessment of higher-income parenting as stereotypically liberal and lower-income parenting as stereotypically conservative.

First, higher-income parents encourage their children to follow their dreams. They encourage critical thinking and support expression of likes, dislikes, feelings, and thoughts, and then give them opportunities to pursue those interests. Lower-income parents tend to emphasize toughness and pride in the face of adversity. They emphasize rules that must not be broken, and then let the children figure out the rest on their own.

Some pollsters wanted to measure how authoritarian their subjects were, as part of finding out who likes Donald Trump's candidacy and who doesn't (The rise of American authoritarianism - Vox). They settled on parenting:

1. Independence or respect for elders?
2. Obedience or self-reliance?
3. To be considerate or to be well-behaved?
4. Curiosity or good manners?