Some note sensibly that expectations of children will vary according to what is needed to flourish in their respective societies. According to this logic, children in small-scale societies will learn subsistence skills and assist in tasks early in life. Alternatively, post-industrial societies privilege children's academic skills needed to grasp rapidly changing technologies, complex systems, and global influences on just about everything. Saddled with homework and extra-curricular activities, these children have little time to lend a hand at home or offer service to others in the community, the thinking goes.
In isolation this means-ends argument sounds reasonable. But in the context of the social and emotional fabric of middle-class families in many post-industrial societies, the weakened emphasis on children's practical contributions to the household warrants a second hearing. As widely noted, the hectic reality of middle class families in the US and Europe involves two parents working, raising a family, and maintaining a home. At 5 pm, you are likely to find a parent (typically mom) at home exhausted from work and literally running from one task to another – homework help, food prep, laundry, tidying up, readying kids for bed, and maybe sneaking a peek at email messages.
Parents invest huge amounts of time (and money) to nurture children's interests, intervene whenever children face a problem big or small, and give children sole credit for accomplishments that required considerable parental involvement. Yet, these same parents garner little or no assistance in chores from their children in return. In our UCLA Sloan study of Los Angeles households, children ignored, resisted, or refused to respond to parents' appeals to help in 22 out of the 30 families observed. In the 8 families where children were cooperative, they were requested to do very little (see Fast-Forward Family: Home, Work and Relationships in Middle Class America).
This is a somewhat uniquely American phenomenon. Middle class parents in other prosperous nations are less tolerant of children's reluctance to do their part around the house. In Sweden, for example, middle class parents insist that each family member is responsible for cleaning up after themselves and keeping the house in order. Small children are expected to clean their dishes and rooms. Sweden's idea of a universal social welfare state begins in early childhood.
The problem in many American households is that parents place a high value of their children's right to pursue their individual desires. It's as if children's "rights" obscure children's obligations. Is it my imagination or has "duty" dropped out of the American child-rearing lexicon?
by Elinor Ochs, Guardian | Read more:
Image: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images
