(Tyrec and Anisha have been eating blue ice-pops and watching television; when they finish their treats, they go outside.) There’s a little boy, maybe six or seven, who immediately starts threatening Tyrec [saying], “I’m going to hit you! I’m going to beat you up!” Tyrec races around him, daring him to fight. Tyrec: “You first, man!” The boy prances around him, baiting Tyrec until he gets up the courage to hit Tyrec on the arm. Tyrec reacts, chasing him around in circles. The little boy laughs, enjoying the game. Tyrec looks a little less thrilled, but pretty enthusiastic about defending himself.
An ice cream truck selling treats comes down the street, interrupting the action briefly. When the truck leaves, the play resumes:
Tyrec picks up a stick, threatens to throw it. The boy laughs, races around until Tyrec does throw it in his direction. Anisha takes a break from talking to another girl to say, “Tyrec! Don’t throw that!” Tyrec ignores her. The little boy picks up the thrown stick and comes after Tyrec. They run in ever widening circles.
Anisha now calls out to Tyrec to tell their mama that she is down the street with her friend. Tyrec hears her, but he doesn’t answer.
An older boy, twelve, sitting on a neighbor’s car, jokes with the little boy: “If you throw that stick again, I’m going to throw you over that fence” (gesturing). The little boy spits on Tyrec, who chases him, a little angered (he scowls, no laughing here) by this, until he catches up with him.
They have run down the street, so they are now near Anisha and her girlfriend, who have made it to the end of the block.
Tyrec spits hugely on the boy—the boy’s shirt I later notice has a big blue stain from Tyrec’s ice-pop mouth. Anisha notices this and turns around to yell at Tyrec, who has run away from the boy to the opposite end of the block. She says, in between his arguments with her, “Tyrec! Why you spittin’? That’s disgusting! I’m going to tell mama when she gets home, you hear?”
As these examples make clear, unlike middle-class children, who tend to play only with children exactly their own age (organized activities are usually age-specific), Tyrec frequently plays with children of various ages. He is also comfortable joining older groups:
Tyrec disappeared around the corner . . . I walked to the corner and took a peek around. There were about nine people sitting on the steps and on a bench which was on the [sidewalk] pavement. Three of them appeared to be teenagers or [even] older.
Overall, daily life for working-class and poor children is slower paced, less pressured, and less structured than for their middle- and upper-middle-class counterparts. Because adults spend less time monitoring children’s activities, there is less emphasis on performance and more latitude for children to pursue their own choices. Children have a separate world from adults. Of course, there are limits to Tyrec and his friends’ autonomy. Parents impose rules to safeguard their children; and the timing of some events, such as errand running and meal times, is determined by adults. Visits to relatives also tend to be set by parents. As with most working-class and poor children, for Tyrec, contacts with kin—from large, extended family events on weekends to informal drop-ins on weekdays—are part of the fabric of daily life. His great-grandmother, several aunts, cousins, and both grandmothers live close by (three of his cousins live “around the corner, in the next block”). Two other cousins his age frequently stay overnight at Tyrec’s house. He often helps his great-grandmother with household chores on the weekend; when she needs him, Tyrec is required to assist his great-grandmother before he begins playing with his friends.
The daily lives of working-class and poor children are not, of course, idyllic. The children we observed were aware of their families’ often precarious financial position and of the constraints that lack of money imposes. They heard and repeated among themselves talk about the cost of things, the lack of money, and the need for more money.
SIBLINGS: SOMEONE TO COUNT ON
Tyrec’s sister and to a lesser extent his older brother are an important part of his life. Although Anisha can be bossy at times, she and Tyrec are close companions. They help each other out, providing mutual support when, for example, their mother is in a bad mood. They spend time together both inside the house and outside. They often watch television together or play video games together. Sometimes they laugh out loud as they sit together in the living room watching television. Other times, they squabble:
Tyrec settles on the floor . . . [to] continue to watch “Cosby.” Anisha comes back right at the end of the show, plunking down on the couch on the other end from me. Anisha says, “Tyrec, get this bowl off here. It’s going to fall. Take it to the kitchen.” Tyrec resists; he complains, I think, and doesn’t get around to taking it. He starts to goof around with the pillows, throwing them up in the air above his head as he lies on his back and catches them. He does this for about a minute and a half before Anisha says, “Tyrec, stop. Throw them to me.” Tyrec throws first one then the other at Anisha, who catches them and puts them on the couch neatly, with a disgusted “I’m-the-older-sister-I’m-tired-of-mothering-you” look. She says, “You’re retarded!” Then they settle into watching the second episode of “Cosby.”
Despite Anisha’s frequent chastisements of Tyrec, their relationship is far more cordial than the acrimonious sibling relationships we observed in middle-class homes, both Black and white.
I HAD A DREAM: TRYING OUT FORMAL PLAY
Middle-class mothers often take the lead in proposing activities for their children. In working-class and poor families, enrollment in an organized activity is not likely to occur unless children specifically request it. In Tyrec’s case, a passion for football led him to beg his mother to allow him to sign up for a team. She denied his repeated requests during third grade, citing many factors, including Mr. Taylor’s concern about the boy’s safety. As she listened to Tyrec’s pleas one evening during the summer before fourth grade began, however, Ms. Taylor was impressed by the vividness of her son’s longing:
He wanted to play last year, but we wouldn’t let him. We thought he was too young and he was very upset . . . And then I think he went to one of the practices with someone around here, one of his friends, and he wanted to sign up. He told me that he wanted to play football, and I said, “No, I don’t think so.” He said he wants to play so bad that he dreams about it. He saw himself running across the football field with a football in his hand.
She relented.
Soon, though, Tyrec began having second thoughts. Attending football practice meant that he had to cut short after-school playtime with his neighborhood friends. Faced with these competing demands, it was the organized activity that he wanted to drop:
After he started, after maybe the third time, he wanted to quit . . . He was having the problem of not being able to play with his friends because he had to leave them to go to practice. And I just didn’t let him—because he worked me over so good to get him signed up that I refused to let him not continue now. [Despite] all the frustration that went along with going, still, it was something that he started, so we were going to go ahead and get through it, and pray that we don’t have to do it again.
As a single parent who worked full time and didn’t get home until 6 P.M., Ms. Taylor found it difficult to meet the array of demands presented by Tyrec’s involvement in football. She rearranged mealtimes, and she spent time getting him ready, time transporting him, and time watching him play: