Virtual Library

Berkeley Collection of Working and Occasional Papers

<Previous Article

Next Article>

TITLE:
In the Shadow of Columbine: Working Parents Rethink their Strategies for Raising Teenagers

DOCUMENT TYPE: Article

Elaine Bell Kaplan is a Senior Postdoctoral Researcher at the Center for Working Families and Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Southern California.

Working Paper No. 57

Download the Document (PDF format - 7 K) - January 2002
Tell a colleague about it.

ABSTRACT:
This study is based on in-depth interviews with thirty-two employed middle-class parents of teenagers. This study addresses the parent’s notions about safety, danger, violence, the Internet and the care required to raise teenagers. The findings suggest that parents divide into two groups of parental care by age of the teenager: Each grouping captures these parents’ belief systems about parenting, their own experiences as teenagers, and their desire to understand the world of their teenagers. This study reveals that each group of parents had to contend with a number of challenges to their parental authority and with institutional and cultural changes that affected their relationships with their teenagers. In this study, parents admit to feelings of insecurity, uneasiness, and of doubting their ability to parent teenagers. The study concludes by arguing that parents of teenagers need support from their communities and from the larger society.