During this
past week I have had to observe parents picking up their children and taking
them home from an Early Head Start Program. For those of you who may not know
what Early Head Start (EHS) is, it is a program that is closely similar to a
daycare. Since my son goes to EHS I decided to observe what parents do when the
time comes to pick up their child. Since this is a reoccurring behavior in my
social structure.
You must be
thinking that this is probably going to be boring because nothing really happens
when you are picking up your child. If you are thinking that then you are
mistaken. I thought the same thing too but it turned out I was wrong as well.
So I
observed that the first thing a couple of parents were doing was getting their
strollers. Then they would call their child to them, wash the child’s hands and
put on the child’s shoes. After that they would take their child’s coat/jacket
from their cubby and then they put it on their child and put their child, all
dressed in the stroller. This whole process sounds smother then it actually is
and went because it is multiple parents trying to do this at once not just one
at a time. They often get in the way of other parents with their big bulky
strollers and cause traffic. I also noticed that the parents that do this are
mostly the Chinese and or Asian parents because the Spanish parents put their
child’s coat and shoes on and takes their stroller and leaves the classroom.
They don’t stand in the way and block the path for the rest of the parents and
children.
This action
adds to the overall social structure because if parents did not go pick their
children then other people like the teachers would not get to go home right
away, to see their own families. The action also adds to the social structure
because it keeps things flowing smoothly in the classroom. Besides this action
adding to the social structure, it also adds to the overall social hierarchy.
It adds to the social hierarchy because it constitutes a good sense of
responsibility for the people in power who implemented the right to go and pick
up ones child from EHS. If you are always late to go pick up your child, the
people in power are going to think that you are not responsible and they might
further investigate the reason why. If the situation becomes more extreme with
more than one parent not picking up their child on time then the social
hierarchy might change the rule and make it so the child get put on a school
bus and gets dropped off at your house. The consequences of not having this
action apart of the social structure are not that rigid. Some of those
consequences include stress because you don’t know what your child is doing or
has done throughout the day or less of an anxiety of having to be caught up in
the traffic of bulky strollers and rude parents. Another consequence that you
might see if this action were not a part of the social structure would be intensity
of involvement. Parents would be more willing and wanting to go pick up their children
so they can be more involved. The consequence of intensity to be involved may
cause conflict because the hierarchies will argue that the action causes too
many problems or issues between other parents and maybe even other children.
The social hierarchies
involved are the teachers, the principal, and the part of the government that
makes the rules for children and child welfare. These hierarchies tie into
culture because they set the ideologies and norms for what we do with our
children and how we get them ready to go home. However, not every parent that
goes to pick up child believes the same thing that the hierarchies believe in
so it becomes an issue of culture war.
Thanks for
reading and stay safe.
