[뉴욕타임스로 논술을 잡아라]Both Sides of Inequality

■ 칼럼

For the past two decades, Annette Lareau 1) has embedded * herself in American families. She and her researchers have sat on living room floors as families went about * their business, ridden in back seats as families drove hither and yon *. 2)

Lareau's work is well known among sociologists, but neglected by the popular media. And that's a shame because through her close observations and careful writings - in books like "Unequal Childhoods" - Lareau has been able to capture the texture of inequality in America. She's described how radically child-rearing techniques in upper-middle-class homes differ from those in working-class and poor homes, and what this means for the prospects * of the kids inside.

The thing you learn from her work is that it's wrong to say good parents raise successful kids and bad parents raise unsuccessful ones. The story is more complicated than that.

Looking at upper-middle-class homes, Lareau describes a parenting style that many of us ridicule but do not renounce. This involves enrolling kids in large numbers of adult-supervised activities and driving them from place to place. Parents are deeply involved in all aspects of their children's lives. They make concerted * efforts to provide learning experiences.

Home life involves a lot of talk and verbal jousting *. Parents tend to reason * with their children, not give them orders. They present "choices" and then subtly influence the decisions their kids make. Kids feel free to pass judgment on adults, express themselves and even tell their siblings they hate them when they're angry.

The pace is exhausting. Fights about homework can be titanic. But children raised in this way know how to navigate the world of organized institutions * . They know how to talk casually * with adults, how to use words to shape how people view them, how to perform before audiences and look people in the eye to make a good first impression.

Working-class child-rearing is different, Lareau writes. In these homes, there tends to be a much starker * boundary between the adult world and the children's world. Parents think that the cares * of adulthood will come soon enough and that children should be left alone to organize their own playtime. When a girl asks her mother to help her build a dollhouse out of boxes, the mother says no, "casually and without guilt," because playtime is deemed to be inconsequential * - a child's sphere, not an adult's.

Lareau says working-class children seem more relaxed and vibrant, and have more intimate contact with their extended families *. "Whining, which was pervasive in middle-class homes, was rare in working-class and poor ones," she writes.

But these children were not as well prepared for the world of organizations and adulthood. There was much less talk in the working-class homes. Parents were more likely to issue brusque orders, not give explanations. Children, like their parents, were easily intimidated by and pushed around * by verbally dexterous * teachers and doctors. Middle-class kids felt entitled to individual treatment when entering the wider world, but working-class kids felt constrained and tongue-tied *.

The children Lareau describes in her book were playful 10-year-olds. Now they're in their early 20's, and their destinies are as you'd have predicted. The perhaps overprogrammed middle-class kids got into good colleges and are heading for careers as doctors and other professionals. The working-class kids are not doing well. The little girl who built dollhouses had a severe drug problem from ages 12 to 17. She had a child outside wedlock, a baby she gave away because she was afraid she would hurt the child. She now cleans houses with her mother.

Lareau told me that when she was doing the book, the working-class kids seemed younger; they got more excited by things like going out for pizza. Now the working-class kids seem older; they've seen and suffered more.

But the point is that the working-class parents were not bad parents. In a perhaps more old-fashioned manner, they were attentive. They taught right from wrong. In some ways they raised their kids in a healthier atmosphere. (When presented with the schedules of the more affluent families, they thought such a life would just make kids sad.)

But they did not prepare their kids for a world in which verbal skills and the ability to thrive in organizations are so important. To help the worse-off * parents, we should raise the earned-income tax credit 3) to lessen their economic stress. But the core issue is that today's rich don't exploit the poor; they just outcompete them.

March 9, 2006 /By David Brooks

■ 돋보기 - 때로는 세상이 공평하지 않다는 것을 받아들여야 하는 것이 인생일까요

위대한 학자나 예술가는 집안 재력의 뒷받침이 있어야 하기 때문에 대개 여유 있는 계층에서 나온다고 합니다. 모차르트의 집에는 항상 음악이 있었습니다. 재능을 일찍 발견하고 격려해 준 아버지가 없었더라면 모차르트는 없었을는지도 모릅니다. 골프 천재 소녀 위성미 양의 경우도 마찬가지일 것입니다.

괴테와 찰스 다윈은 대단한 귀족 집안이었습니다. 이들은 개인적으로도 유복한 삶을 살았지만 인류문화 발전에 크게 기여했습니다.

돈 있는 사람이 좋은 집에 사는 것과 자녀에게 좋은 교육을 시키는 것은 비슷한 것 같아도 다른 측면이 있습니다. 좋은 집에 사는 것은 재산세 조금 더 내는 것 외에는 사회에 공헌하는 바가 없습니다. 그저 개인의 ‘웰빙’일 뿐입니다. 그러나 교육은 그렇지 않습니다. 좋은 교육을 받은 사람은 개인적으로 출세하고 돈도 벌지만 기업인 정치지도자 과학자 예술가로서 사회에 기여하게 되지요. 시장경제에서 똑같은 집에 살고, 똑같은 자동차를 타자는 이야기가 성립될 수 없는 것처럼 자녀에게 똑같은 교육을 시키자는 것도 가능하지 않습니다. 학교를 붕어빵으로 만드는 것이 가능할지는 모르지만 부모의 지적 수준이나 학력까지 평준화할 방법이 있을까요.

완벽하게 공평한 세상을 만들려다가 실패한 이데올로기가 공산주의입니다. 때로는 세상이 공평하지 않다는 것을 받아들여야 하는 것이 인생일지도 모릅니다. 인생이 공평하지 않다는 사실이 곧 우리의 삶과 세상을 개선하기 위해 우리가 할 수 있는 일을 하지 않아도 된다는 것을 의미하지는 않습니다.

마르크스의 이론처럼 부유층이 빈곤층을 착취하는 것이 아니라 더 경쟁력이 뛰어날 뿐이라는 거죠. 이 글에 나오는 노동계급 부모들의 교육방법이 반드시 잘못된 것도 아닙니다.

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