Article Analysis : It's Hard To Make It In America

In the article Making it in America Adam Davidson takes time to interview different employees at Standard Motor Products to determine how it is treating them and how factories are changing in time. Adam is receiving a tour of the plant by manager Tony Scalzitti where he sees many factory workers in blue lab coats, hair nets, and protective eyewear. This is where Adam first runs into Madelyn Parlier.

While both styles of parenting have their benefits and weaknesses, the educational system of the United States is built predominantly on middle class values and Concerted Cultivation. Consequently, this may negatively affect how children who aren’t familiar with this upbringing navigate their already complex academic and home lives. This imbalance within the student population can put some students farther ahead and at the same time neglect students who don’t have the resources they need to keep up with their peers. Lareau refers to this as “transmission of differential advantages to children”. She states the benefits the advantages that middle-class homes typically offer:

     Jobs won’t only support teens for the things they want, but it can help benefit for the things they need. The first things teens think of for their future are going to college and getting their first car. But, let’s say there’s a well educated thirteen-year-old, raised in a low-income family, who has plans on going to college.

Contrastingly, middle class parents, who have a college degree and a career, feel an obligation to mold their children into well-rounded adults. Therefore, middle class families have extremely hectic schedules with the parents’ occupations, children’s education, numerous

The first determinant of one’s fate is their family’s background. Almost none of the children from low-income families made it through college. With the expenses of college today, I’m actually not surprised by that statistic. Of the children from low-income families, only 4 percent had a college degree at age 28, compared to 45 percent of the children from higher-income backgrounds. "That 's a shocking tenfold

Reeves, Senior Fellow, Economic Studies Co-Director, Center on Children and Families they state that “There is a growing marriage gap along class lines in America. This may be bad news for social mobility, since children raised by married parents typically do better in life on almost every available economic and social measure.” (Howard and Reeves para. 1) This first portion of the article talks about how not a lot of people are getting married and people not getting married may be causing a whole dilemma within social and economic mobility which in result leads to more families living in poverty. In addition, Howard and Reeves written “In 1950, almost 90 percent of children age 0-14 lived with married parents-- now that proportion has fallen to less than two-thirds of children. The gap in marriage is growing, especially in terms of childbearing. While marriage is struggling against cultural, social and economic headwinds in poorer communities, it is flourishing among affluent, well-educated Americans who are both more likely to marry and more likely to stay married.” (Howard and Reeves para 3.). In paragraph 3 of “The Marriage Effect: Money or Parenting?” they write about how back in the 1950s 90 percent of children grew up in a parenting household but now two parenting house has decreased than two thirds of the

Robert Putnam’s argument in Our Kids is that family structure, parenting styles, quality of schooling, and the community all affect a person's upward mobility. He also argues that socioeconomic

Many people living in poverty lack the proper training and education for the higher paying jobs, as Shipler states “The entire burden rests on the trainee to be good enough to get a job, not on the employer to be good enough to provide decent pay and working condition” (263). With the lack of proper training and education, how are those in poverty to get a job that pays enough to support themselves, let alone a family. So many of those in poverty lack even the soft skills needed for a job, dependability, hygiene, day care responsibilities, and transportation to and from work. Fortunately some companies have helped with programs for those in need, for example Xerox has a program and has “found the ex-addicts and ex-welfare recipients who graduated from SOME’s training to be more reliable than walk in applications” (The Working Poor, 261). SOME is discusses in detail in The Working Poor book and is a Center for Employment Training located in Washington DC.

Other substantial facts written in Adam Davidson’s, “Making it in America”, are how times have changed in today’s society compared to our past. For example, Davidson explains how a hard work-ethic doesn’t cut it today as it did back in the 20th century. Another point made in, “Making it in America”, is how uneducated individuals can be taught how to do a new job in about 25 minutes. This shows how simplistic their jobs can be and why it can be replaced by modern

In response to the article, some the information was new but a lot of it not surprising.  It was surprising, however, to read that although Mr. Naets is somewhat more educated and most likely in a higher tax bracket than his parents were, his standard of living is a lot lower than that of his parents.  That is alarming only because we have a lot more opportunities available to us through networking or technology and on a scale that was never available to our parents. Also in Mr. Naets case, he and his wife earn well above the national average which is also alarming because you would think that someone in such a position would not be as worried as someone of the opposite spectrum. It is discerning to think that no matter how hard we strive to for a better life, we will always feel that is not enough.

First off, America was built on the foundations of reinvention and freedom, principles which we must continue. The first Americans forsook everything they had, in the hopes of a happier life. Their search was for a life of freedom, without tyrannical pressure. To reinvent a life so different from what they were forced to live was the freedom Americans yearned for. A quote that rings true in the hearts of Americans by Albert Camus, “Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better.”

America has been dubbed the “Land of Opportunity” since colonization of Jamestown back in 1607. Unfortunately, especially for an ignorant immigrant, the “Land of Opportunity” is a big myth- an illusion, if you will. Ona, Jurgis, and their party were swindled twice on their way to New York City, once upon their departure from Lithuania and once upon their arrival. Further worsening their odds, capitalism made it even harder for immigrants to survive during the 20th century. Native Americans often declined factory work since the work to pay ratio was ludicrous. Thus employers’ eyes lit upon immigrants who were content with any type of work they could find. Immigrants soon became slave to capitalism. Oftentimes immigrants ended up in even more

Do Mr. Brook’s comments surprise you? After reading the short article by David Brooks, I did not feel surprised by his comments. The statistics of the college-educated and high school educated single family homes astonished me. Also, the fact that in the 1970s and 80s there was no difference in parenting seen at all between the two classes.

As a result, the country as an overall has become more divided by class. The writers if the article also give examples of how these changes have taken place over time by making a comparison of what the meaning of marriage used to be and why people used to get married versus what these things mean now, in modern America. Additionally, it talks about the impacts that education and gender have on the pay gap between husband and wife in comparison to what it was years ago (Miller and Bui, para. 7-9). The article describes how, in marriage where the wife makes more than the husband, statistically, it is destined to end in divorce, which can tend to have a negative impact on the individual (Miller and Bui, para. 20-24). Lastly, the article also shows the positive effects of the shift in the current or modern dynamic of marriage and how this shift as an overall could expand over future generations because children are now growing up in households where both parents are alike than different (Miller and Bui, para. 28-29).

However she makes an egregious idea about the lower class. In the article it states “The problem is the differential impact on children from poor families. Babies born to low-income parents spend at least 40 percent of their waking hours in front of a screen — more than twice the time spent by middle-class babies. They also get far less cuddling and bantering over family meals than do more privileged children.” I disagree with this statement. In an article “The Impact of Parents’ Background on their Children’s Education” it states that Even though the parents of low-income families participate less in their children’s education, according to Neuman, “most parents – even low-income and culturally and diverse parents – possess the attitudes and at least the sufficient early literacy skills and knowledge to help their children get on the road to literacy” (Neuman 221)….. Even though most research shows that low-income families are less involved in their children’s education, there is still some research that proves that social status has a small impact on the successfulness of their children’s education. Disregarding social class, nearly all children in the United States will almost always have some interactions with literacy in their early years of education with their parents before officially starting school.” (http://www.macalester.edu/educationreform/publicintellectualessay/Gratz.pdf) No matter what social class a parent is in every parent will make the sacrifice to make sure their child is