22SP_SO205A-Sociology of the Family

In response to the first question, I think children are at risk if both parents work outside the home dependent on the job. If someones' parents are working jobs that demand them to come in 6/7 days a week all day to make a livable wage, yes the child will be affected. When parents' working these low paying high labor jobs, they are spending their time off catching up- cleaning, grocery shopping, and sleeping. They do not have the money to increase their Childs' cultural capital by going to Broadway shows, taking trips, etc,. when they can barely make ends meet working extremely hard. However, if a child has parents' with jobs that give them a high quality of life, the child will not be at risk. If a parents' job gives them enough money for disposable income, save for future expenses, to travel, and take time off, the child will not be at high risk. Sufficient income allows parents to hire tutors, buy books, save for college, send their child abroad, etc,. This gives the child high amounts of cultural capital.

To the second question, strict parents make sneaky children. I think this cliche is is true when children do not have respect for their parents. It is not necessarily the closeness that decreases delinquency, but respect. I have seen kids who are very close with their parents, but that did not make them "good" kids. Their parents let them throw parties, bought them alcohol, needles, substances, etc,. However, the rules are important and key to keeping children out of trouble. You have to have a healthy balance of being your kids friend AND disciplinarian. The relationship should not be "Do as I say no matter what", it should be "I am your friend, you can tell me anything, but you need to trust my judgement because I have been there and want better outcomes for you". If you have given your child respect and privacy, they will offer it in return.

Growing up I had both parents who worked outside the home and from what I recall it had no detrimental or negative impact on my extracurriculars, education, and overall well-being as child. When it comes to both parents having jobs outside the home, I truly believe it depends on the jobs and the hours of the day it requires. If both parents are only able to spend an hour or two a day with there children I can see the potential negative implications it can make on a child, however, if the parents jobs still allow them to spend good, quality time with the children I don't see a negative impact on their well-being. Regarding the second question, growing up I had a good relationship with my parents where I respected them and loved them and they did the same for me. The relationship was based on trust, rules, and love, however, there was never a point where I viewed my mom or dad as my "best-friend" rather than my parent. I think a good relationship comes with balance or discipline but also comes with the understanding and joy that comes with being a friend. I do not think children who are close with there parents are worse off for delinquency, however, I do believe there should always be a balance when it comes to the boundaries of parents being a parent or a friend, in order to best decide what the child needs rather than what the child wants.

I do not see how having both parents work outside the home will have any effect on the child. The standard workweek is 9am to 5pm and Monday-Friday, with weekends off. This time is the time that a child is going to be in daycare/school. It should not matter if the mom and dad are working during this time, because the child is not going to be seeing their family during this time anyways. I would agree that I could see how it affects children when their parent works a non-typical workweek and that prevents the child from seeing the parent. I grew up with a stay at home mom and a working father. Some advantages to both parents working is that there is more money at home. Some disadvantages is that there is less free time of the parents.
I agree that close parent-child relationships will prevent delinquency. I also agree that parents who provide rules and supervision prevent child delinquency, but I do have to say that I think the rules and supervision should be limited. I grew up with almost no rules or supervision, and I think I would have retaliated and participated in delinquent behavior had my parents been more strict. However, my parents trusted me, and I felt that I had to keep their trust, so I never got into trouble. I think it depends on the type of child you have and the type of parent you choose to become to determine what the best regiment is for disciplining your child to reduce delinquent behavior. 

I think that it depends on the parents work schedule. If a parent works around the same ours during the week while their child is at school, they will have more time to spend with their children. If parents' work long hours and are unable to spend as much time with their kids, it could affect their time spent with the child. However, with that being said I think it depends on the parents' priorities. If a parents work schedule provided them with the available time to spend with their children, but they don't take advantage of it, say they are more concerned with personal activities, the time is essentially useless. Vice versa, if a parent has a crazy work schedule but really uses the time, they do have with their children to bond and be present with them, it could be very beneficial.
I believe a close parental relationship can prevent a child from behaving poorly. I think it depends on the severity of the parents' rules and expectations of the child. For example, if the parents' rules aren't too strict a child is more likely to abide by those rules. However, with extremely strict parents I think that it can cause the child to rebel almost to prove to their parents how ridiculous their rules are. If a child doesn't have a close relationship with their parents, they may have the freedom to essential do whatever they want, but some children who deal with essential raising themselves may be "good kids" to try to prove to their parents and others that they are a good child despite their situation.

Having a parent that is present in the house at most times would be beneficial to the child just because of quality time being spent with the parent. There can be some boundary issues that may develop with personal space or alone time, but i think the overall benefit would outweigh the issues that may arise. I had both parents that worked out of the house growing up and because of that we had very focused family dinners when we could and spent quality time on the weekends but there were times when i would do my own things on the weekends and wouldn't get to see them much.

Parents should have rules for their children especially at young ages that will teach them to be respectful and as well as follow rules that are set outside of the parents. However, parents should not control every aspect of a child's life because children learn best when doing dangerous things carefully and the best teacher in the world is life.

I can't entirely agree with the statement because I grew up with both parents working outside the home. Still, I also hand my grandmother lived right across the street from us, which helped. If my grandmother was not as close as she was, I could see some issues arise and agree with that statement. Some advantage of having your parents both work outside the house is it usually results in a higher income in most cases which helps the SES of the family. At the same time, some disadvantages are that you do not get to spend a lot of time with your parents, especially during the summer months, which is upsetting.

I grew up with both praents working, but my dad worked most of the time. My mom ended up being a stay at home mother for a while with raising me and my siblings. but my parents both worked for the most part. I think it depends on what and how the parents put time into their children once they get home from work. So the risk depends on the time and effort a parent puts in on caring for their children after work.

A bad outcome from parents being strict on their child's every move is once they get any sort of freedom it will sometimes end up badly, such as pregnancy like one of my friend's cousin. the positive is that the parents were able to keep their child safe from whatever they were protecting them from.

I think that it can be hard to invest in a child's wellbeing if both parents are gone out working but I think it's doable. I feel like those parents who both work are working in order to support and be able meet the needs of their child. Both my parents worked growing up, but fortunately for me my mom was my principal when Iwas in elementary school so she was able to care for me while I was in school if need be and then in the summer she'd just send me to the summer camp that the school had. I think the hardest thing to deal with when both parents are working is the reassurance of knowing their child is ok. I feel like parents who have super strict rules and supervision are more likely to see delinquency from their child because their child feels restricted of freedom at home so they are going to try and act out else where to express their discontent. Some positives of parents having rules an supervision is it forces discipline and reinforces obedience but the negative of this is that it can cause the children to feel restricted thus causing problems else where such as at school.

When it comes to the case where both parents are working and the child has the time to live alone, it gives the child a good opportunity to prepare for living alone in the future. In my case, that made me do everything by myself but earning money while my parents were out, such as cooking, and laundry. Moreover, excessive interference prevents a child's well growth. I think parents are supposed to give their children a chance to do something by themselves. Independence will be needed when they become an adult. If the parents take care of their child in whole cases, that will not be grown. So the parents are needed to be just a protection for their child.

I do not think that children are at risk if both parents work outside the home. If you have rules in place and mutual respect for those rules, then having two working parents can actually teach kids to be more independent and also hard work. I did grow up with two parents who worked. My dad always was out of work when I and my sister got out of school unless he had to work an athletic event at school. Even though my mother worked late, we always waited til she got home and ate as a family. One disadvantage would probably be when one parents was out of town, especially my dad we would be home alone for hours. This wasn't always negative though. It allowed me and my sister time to be independent and figure out what we thought the best way to spend that time would be.

I do believe kids are more likely to behave better if they have a close relationship with their parents. If they have this close relationship they are not trying to defy their parents intentionally. I also think having a close relationship makes parents more understanding when kids mess up and allow for conversations around bad behavior instead of just a hard punishment. I do however think if a parent has too many rules and keeps too close of a watch on their kids, it just teaches the kid to be sneaker and not reach out to parents if they're doing something against the rules and something bad happens.

It really just depends on what hours and what schedule the parents have. Most of a child's day is going to be spent in school and then finishing schoolwork. Most of these hours are going to be during the same as the parent's work schedule. Obviously, it is important for children to have contact and spend time with their parents. Their parents are their first teachers and socializers, and children need to learn from their parents. Furthermore, if a child is denied their time with their parents, it could result in behavioral problems. However, if parents are both working out of the home, but are working normal hours it should be fine. This is more of a problem of time rather than proximity.

Children respect authority. If they do not learn to respect their parent's authority, then it will be much harder for them to learn to respect it in the future. It is important for parents to exercise this power and use it to influence their children in a positive way. If not pushed, many kids would just watch TV all day and do nothing or they could get into trouble. Having authoritative (but not authoritarian) parents best sets up a child for success.

In response to the first question, I grew up with both parents working outside the home. Some advantages of this included learning life skills earlier on such as cooking and time management. Since I am the oldest sibling, there were times when I had to make dinner for my sister and I since my parents wouldn't get home from work until 6:30. In terms of time management, there were many times where I was waiting for a ride to or from school or practice. In all that time I spent sitting around, I got a lot of homework done. In terms of disadvantages, we definitely lost out on family time in the evenings. It was hard at times to spend quality time as a family since both parents were always so busy at work.

A positive to having parents that keep rules in place are disciplined, well-rounded kids. Kids who grow up with rules in place in the home don't tend to act out as much. On the negative side, overly strict parents tend to raise kids who want to break the rules every chance they get. These kids grow up knowing how to sneak around their parents' overly strict rules. I think there is a balance in between having rules set for kids and also allowing them the freedom to do what they want.

For the first question, I wouldn't necessarily say that children are at "risk" if both parents work outside of the home. I think this because I know tons of people that have parents that work outside the home and their relationships are great. I do think that, if you have parents or a parent that works at home, naturally they're going to have a better/closer relationship. My mom is a stay at home mom and so I've always done everything with her and our relationship is great, we're best-friends. Some disadvantages of having parents working outside the home is having no-one to help you with things such as schoolwork. But it also makes you more independent in some ways of life.
For the second question, I agree, if you and your parents are close, it's easy to set rules about what you should and shouldn't do. You can be more open and talk to your parents if you have a closer relationship with them. One positive to having stricter parents is that you're more likely to be safe. For example, my parents have my phone location at all times, and even though it might be annoying at times, its for my safety.

My mom worked from home and my dad worked at an office for most of my childhood. I think some of the advantages are is that I always knew my mom was free to call if I needed her because she worked on her own schedule. I also think that helped with my relationship with my dad because I knew when I would see him. I didn’t really see any disadvantages in that way. I could see that if both parents worked outside the home at the same time then that might affect the child but if the parents had different work schedules then it might be different as well.
I have a close relationship with my parents and I never got in trouble in high school. I was always the one staying out of trouble. While I was always afraid of disappointing my parents, I did have very many rules in place. I do think I didn’t have a lot of rules is because I gained a lot of trust from my parents. So while I do agree that someone having a close relationship with their parents will help them I also think that being honest and having trust is more important.