asking (and nagging and negotiating)

in her new book, unequal childhoods, annette lareau, a sociologist at temple university, argues that middle- to upper-middle-class families today tend to practice a child-rearing strategy she calls "concerted cultivation," which involves, among other things, frequent interventions at school on behalf of your children, active (and often opinionated) monitoring of homework and the organizing of family time around children's extensive schedules of team sports, lessons and performances. (one of the more striking documented changes in how children spend their time is the increase in hours spent watching siblings perform.) children in working-class and poor families, by contrast, are more likely to be raised in a spirit of "natural growth," meaning they spend less time in the company of adults like teachers and coaches and more with other children in the kind of self-directed, open-ended play for which affluent parents often profess nostalgia these days. the effects of these differing strategies—which are not only a matter of resources but also of beliefs and habits—are to reinforce class divisions, helping to prepare middle- and upper-middle-class children for life in the middle and upper classes by accustoming them to asking (and nagging and negotiating) for what they want, and giving them the sense of entitlement that comes from having so much of the family's life formatted around their activities.