EXPLORING AMERICANS' ATTITUDES TOWARD SOCIALIZERS AND CHILDREARING RECIPES

AMERICANS' PERCEPTIONS OF THE RELATIVE
IMPACTS OF DIFFERENT SOCIALIZERS

In the "biographical autopsies" the mass media conducts following the death of some infamous individual (i.e., Rev. Jimmy Jones following the mass suicide of his religious cult in the jungles of Guyana, or such serial killers as Jeffrey Dahmer), frequently revealed is a story of abuse and inability or (or lack of interest) of parents intervening to alter the self development of their child. But not all victims of abuse grow up to become deviants. What often makes the difference is having some supportive adult.

In the 1990 NORC General Survey, a random sample of American adults were asked the following series of questions: "Many adults play roles in the lives of children. Please rate the following as very good (coded 1), good (2), fairly good (3), fairly bad (4), and very bad (5): mothers, fathers, grandparents, teachers, and priests, ministers or rabbis." Below are the mean scores white and black females and males gave (note: the lower the mean the more highly rated the individual's role).

Do you detect any interesting differences here? First, there are statistically significant differences in the mean scores given by black and white males and females to the roles played by grandparents, clergy, and teachers. Second, it is interesting how grandparents are given the edge over fathers, particularly among African-Americans.

H ISTORICAL CHANGES IN CHILDREARING STRATEGIES

There have been intriguing shifts over the past century in popularized strategies for creating "good" selves. Part of this change involves shifts in connotations of "good," whether it means something good from the perspective of society or of the individual being socialized. As Warren Susman (Culture as History) argues, between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, there has been a cultural shift in the predominant self-structure of Americans, from the romantic ideal of "character" to one of "personality." Character involves matters of integrity and duty; personality involves popularity, the ability to make friends. Associated with these changes are parenting strategies ranging on at least one continuum from "permissiveness" to authoritarianism.

This longitudinal shift toward permissiveness is clearly evident in Wolfenstein's research on infant genital exploration, where he analyzed Infant Care, a government-issued child care pamphlet. In the 1914 version, physical restraints were advised for children in bed, with warnings that masturbation was an injurious practice. Fifteen years later, masturbation was seen as a short, passing phase, and experts recommended giving the child a toy to hold at bedtime. By 1951, masturbation was seen as an act about which the child had no feelings and was only a source of maternal embarrassment. In their four-generation model of American history, Strauss & Howe (1991:65) see more cyclical trends, arguing that shifts in child nurture typically occur during or just after eras of exceptional spiritual fervor (for example, the 1741-2, 1842-3, 1981-2) or just following major crises in public life (the 1859-60 or 1942-43).

IT IS IMPORTANT THAT THE CHILD MUST OBEY

Among the differences between the social classes is the way they socialize their young. Elsewhere, for instance, we considered class differences in endorsing spanking. The results of a 1989 national survey of Americans revealed that individuals identifying themselves as members of the lower class to be seven times more likely than those identifying themselves as members of the upper class (and nearly twice as likely as those from the middle and working classes) to mention obedience as "the most important [thing] for a child to learn," and less than half as likely to mention thinking for oneself. The explanation for this is that in order to survive, lower-class individuals must know how to obey and to defer to others.

Over the years, the NORC General Social Surveys have included questions dealing with socialization strategies for children (the 1989 study above, in fact, was one these survey years). Among the questions asked were the following two dealing with the importance placed on obedience:

• If you had to choose, which thing on this list would you pick as the most important for a child to learn to prepare him or her for life? [Choices: to obey; to be well-liked or popular; to think for himself or herself; to work hard; to help others when they need help.] Which comes next in importance? Which comes third? fourth?
• Which three qualities listed on this card would you say are the most desirable for a child to have? Which one of these three is the most desirable of all? [Choices: that he has good manners; that he tries hard to succeed; that he is honest; that he is neat and clean; that he has good sense and sound judgment; that he has self-control; that he acts like a boy (or like a girl); that he gets along well with other children; that he obeys his parents well; that he is responsible; that he is considerate of others; that he is interested in how and why things happen; that he is a good student.

Since these questions were asked in different years, I combined the two, coding the third of Americans who answered first question as first or second most important and the third of Americans who included "that he obeys his parents well" among the three qualities they thought were most desirable for a child to have as those seeing obeying as important. Others were coded as viewing obeying as being less important.

In our causal model are diagrammed predictors of who are most likely to stress obedience in childrearing: race, sex, age, region, education, and religiosity. The lines show the significant zero-order relationships between the variables. The green numbers associated with the lines are the percentage differences between the high and low categories (in blue above and below each variable) of antecedent variables on the high category of the variable causally "downstream." For instance, the -15.82 for the line between EDUC and OBEY means that those with four or more years of college are 15.82 percentage points less likely to say OBEY is important than those who did not graduate from high school. Observe, that there is no significant difference between how men and women thought about obeying. Parental status was not included because it didn't affect responses to OBEY.

Among our findings:

• Only about 22% of the 7.73 percentage differences between African Americans and white thinking obeying is important is explained by sex, age, region, education, and religiosity.
• About one-third of the percentage difference in thinking obedience is important between the oldest and youngest group is explained by the other variables, suggesting that younger generations are decreasing likely to stress obeying. There is some evidence that this trend is changing: 27 percent of those born before 1900 thought obedience was important, compared to 15 percent of those born in the 1950s and 17% of those born after 1960.
• The regional difference detected, wherein Southerners were 6.77 percentage points more likely than non-Southerners to think obeying is important is not spurious. Controlling for all other variables only explains about one-quarter of the difference.
• Strongly religious Americans are, indeed, more likely to stress obedience than their less religious counterparts. Less than one-fifth of percentage difference between the groups' thinking obedience is important is explained away by the other variables.



Return to Parenting and Children