Tyrec’s parents live apart. Together fifteen years, and married for nine, they separated four years ago. Tyrec Senior lives in an apartment in the central city, about fifteen minutes away from his wife and children’s house. Ms. Taylor does not like the area where he lives; she calls it a “ghetto.” While virtually all Black, Mr. Taylor’s working-class neighborhood has many thriving stores, small gardens, inhabited old houses, and families. Generally, the area is seen as more desirable than numerous poor Black neighborhoods in the city. Tyrec Senior, a thin, wiry man with a serious, intense air, talks to the children on the telephone most days of the week and usually sees them once a week. He once had a substance abuse problem; he is proud of the fact that it is no longer an issue. He dropped out of school when he was young, and reading seems difficult for him. He has opinions on many issues, including the state of the world, which he offers freely to anyone who will listen. When the children protest that they cannot do something, he insists that they can. He also weighs in on decisions related to the children; for example, citing safety issues, he objected to Tyrec playing football (his opinion was overridden). He is currently unemployed; in the past, he has worked in social services, including in counseling for drug-related issues.
Ms. Taylor is a high school graduate; she works as a secretary. She is responsible for managing the company’s fleet of cars, and she answers the phone when the regular operator takes her lunch break. She is a woman of medium height with springy, corkscrew curls that cascade around her face. She smiles often and often seems harried. Although she is only slightly overweight, she worries about her figure. When I remark that she is wearing a “cute outfit,” she responds, “Oh, thanks, but I’m too fat. I can’t fit into anything cute.” The field-worker described Ms. Taylor this way:
At about 6:45 Celeste walks in. She is a slightly overweight woman with . . . a cute face. She smiles often. Later, in the dining room, where we sit at the dining room table, she often looks into a wall mirror hung near the table as she is talking (occasionally touching her hair). There are remnants of red lipstick on her lips, her nails are painted (bright) red, and she wears large earrings hidden by her hair and a thick silver bracelet. She comes in with a whoosh; she seems harried but glad to be home.
When her car is running, Ms. Taylor drives to work; when it is not (which is often), she takes the bus. Her job does include health insurance, but the annual salary for her position (approximately $20,000) is hard to stretch far enough to cover all the family’s needs. Paying the monthly rent of $650, going out for fast food (often weekly), and having dinner in a restaurant such as “Sizzler” (once a month) leaves little for expenses such as fixing the car. The family usually takes a one-week vacation at the beach, but Ms. Taylor plans for this in advance and does overtime to cover the costs (which she does not normally do). In the Taylor family, there are frequent conversations about money. The children’s lives are constrained by the shortage of funds. Mr. Taylor buys clothes for Tyrec and his sister, Anisha (in the last year, for example, he bought four pairs of sneakers, at $70 each, for them), but he does not pay child support. Although Tyrec would like many video games, his mother says, “I can’t afford them.” He only gets them as “big gifts” for a birthday, usually from a grandmother. On the other hand, Ms. Taylor is willing to absorb the $50 football registration fee and the cost of spikes and a protective cup and strap for Tyrec. She feels that on balance “it didn’t cost a lot of money” for her son to be involved in this organized activity. She is struck, instead, by the fact that “it cost more of your time than anything.”
Tyrec’s sister, Anisha, is thirteen. While Ms. Taylor is away at work, Anisha frequently “mothers” her younger brother, for example, by reminding Tyrec to pick up his dishes. She enjoys socializing, and during the summer especially, she looks forward to spending at least part of each day hanging out with friends who live in the neighborhood. Eighteen-year-old Malcolm is in the process of graduating from high school and is also working full time. He is not certain of what he will do next; he might take some community college classes in the fall.
Tyrec is almost ten; he is a small, thin, sprite of a boy. He looks like his father. He is a solid student at Lower Richmond elementary school, getting mostly Bs and Cs and completing his homework regularly. He is compliant at school, but on his own turf, he can be very assertive with peers. As one field-worker noted:
Tyrec’s peers are really important to him. He’s much funnier, cooler (no whining) around his friends [than he is at home, when his mother is present]. With his peers he gets to have intimate conversations, games, forays around the neighborhood, [and] a context in which to develop a sense of autonomy.
Even in front of adults, including his mother, Tyrec is assertive sometimes. For example, in Burger King one Sunday afternoon, he puts his white Frisbee and his large drink (which he has not finished) on an empty table. An old white man in threadbare clothes comes in and heads directly for Tyrec’s table. When Tyrec calls out, “HEY! That’s mine,” the man changes his course, veering away from the table. Ms. Taylor giggles; Anisha and I laugh as well.
Ms. Taylor has an assortment of rules to guide her children’s behavior in and out of the home. Many of her expectations she articulates explicitly. She places a premium on respect for adults. All adults, whether they are related to Tyrec or not, receive automatic respect and deference from the children. They append a “Miss” to virtually all adult female names, for example, Miss Jo, with no prompting from their mother or any other adult, (something we observed other poor and working-class Black children do as well).2 Ms. Taylor does not allow cursing. She expects Tyrec to come home when she sends for him. She sets boundaries on how far he may go from home, as well as what kinds of things he may do (e.g., walk to the public pool to swim, ride his bike, play ball in the street, since cars are infrequent) and things he may not do (e.g., go across town, come home hours later than expected, drink, use drugs). He must do his homework before he is allowed to go out and play. It is relatively common for Tyrec to go on short binges of misbehavior—repeatedly coming in late, for example. One evening he was banished from Vacation Bible School for his poor conduct. At home, when things are not going his way, he routinely demonstrates his feelings by looking annoyed, whining, or crying. Most of Ms. Taylor’s disciplining consists of withdrawing privileges and restricting the children (Tyrec especially) to the house. At times, she turns a blind eye to Tyrec’s violation of her rules (as when he was out in the street playing with friends when he was supposed to be home, on restriction). She remarks that she thinks Tyrec’s periodic misbehavior is due to the fact that he has not had a beating recently. In her view, that kind of punishment can be helpful.
Ms. Taylor complains that Tyrec is often “hyper.” But her affection for her son is visible and often demonstrated. Indeed, both parents regularly offer their son physical affection, rubbing his head or giving him a hug. For example, one evening Tyrec is watching a video (The Game of Death, with Bruce Lee), fast-forwarding the tape to the fight scenes.