>
> On Jan 12, 2010, at 8:31 PM, Eubulides wrote:
>
> On 1/12/2010 4:40 PM, martin wrote:
>>
>> I'm don't know if I'm surprised, but the two income family and
>>> consequent reduction in family size doesn't seem to have been given any
>>> consideration in this thread.
>>>
>>> ==============
>>
>> We were waiting for you to bring it up; what took you so long? :-)
>>
>
> Just thought that there might be some room for scarcity in the analysis of
> value. There were an abundance of children in the streets when I was a kid.
> b.'42
>
> martin
I'll buy the two income household thing but think the family size aspect has
less to do with it. I grew up in suburban north Jersey in an upper middle
class town of, mostly, dual income households with two or fewer kids - with
>50% of the houses kid-less - in the late 60s and 70s and we were outside
all the time, running wild, cycling to the community pool, heading down to
the Passaic River to watch pollution float by, playing flashlight tag, etc.
According to a whole raft of family/lifecourse/childhood sociologists
there's a real, though of course not universal, split between how
contemporary professional-managerial class folks - of all races - raise
their kids and how blue collar and low income folks - of all races, rural,
suburban and urban - raise their kids. Lower income folks, generally, raise
kids in a manner described by Lareau (there at UCB, Chuck) as "accomplishing
natural growth" - the old "go outside and play", often with extended family
and/or the kids of friends. Professional-managerial families, since the
1980s, increasingly have embraced "concerted cultivation" - the
overscheduled/overstressed/never-self-motivated child, when scholars are
critical - believing not only that a (crazy) diversity of (exhausting)
experiences is good for kids but also that dealing with adults, learning the
rules of the game and representing your needs, desires and demands to those
in power, and learning to outcompete others will assure that these kids
aren't downwardly mobile in the increasingly insecure world of upper middle
income living.
Obviously, the fewer other kids are out in the streets, down at the
playground or self-organizing activities, the fewer parents that are going
to want to send their kids out into the streets, down to the school, etc.
We have plenty of kids in our upper middle income, two-earner neighborhood,
but most parents think that the family that lets their many foster/adopted
kids roam around on the streets, knocking on our doors to see if our kids
can play, etc., are a pain in the neck... 'cuz, when we're home with our
kids, we want to be with our kids since we don't see them all that much
given our schedules and theirs.
My sense is that the produced scarcity is a product of class-specific
cultural practices not "natural" birth rates... which, I'll admit, have
fallen for PMC types.
APR