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“Beautifully written, relentlessly insightful, and methodologically innovative, Playing to Win expertly captures the perspectives of parents and children regarding the importance of after-school activities for socialization and childhood in contemporary American society. Hilary Levey Freidman has produced a sociological gem.”
—William A. Corsaro, author of The Sociology of Childhood
“Hilary Levey Friedman’s Playing to Win is an essential social science volume that transcends the boundary between scholarship and popular critique. Levey Friedman successfully explains how upper-middle-class Americans think about their children’s engagement in serious leisure: competitive chess, dance competitions, and youth soccer. Listening carefully to both parents and children, she reveals the tensions and contradictions, benefits and drawbacks of intense competitions, and provides a perspective necessary for researchers who examine child development and for parents who wish to raise happy, healthy children.”
—Gary Alan Fine, author of With the Boys: Little League Baseball and Preadolescent Culture and Gifted Tongues: High School Debate and Adolescent Culture
“The world of twenty-first-century childhood has found its superb interpreter. With sparkling arguments and fascinating evidence, Hilary Levey Friedman’s Playing To Win introduces us to one of America’s most remarkable contemporary innovations: the proliferation of organized, competitive after-school activities. An important contribution to the sociology of culture and inequality.”
—Viviana A. Zelizer, author of Pricing the Priceless Child: The Changing Social Value of Children
“Hilary Levey Friedman has managed to convince numerous upper-middle-class parents and their children to pause in their mad dash between extracurricular activities to explain why they have chosen this lifestyle. Using information from detailed interviews across a variety of activities, she provides a revealing account of the motivations that lie behind the dramatic rise in competitive children’s activities. This fascinating book forms a key part of an emerging body of research that links the increase in time devoted to childcare to parents’ worries about their children’s economic futures.”
—Valerie Ramey, Professor and Chair of Economics, University of California, San Diego
Playing to Win
RAISING CHILDREN IN A
COMPETITIVE CULTURE
HILARY LEVEY FRIEDMAN
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
BerkeleyLos AngelesLondon
University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 2013 by The Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Friedman, Hilary Levey, 1980–
Playing to win : raising children in a competitive culture / Hilary Levey Friedman.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-520-27675-8 (hardback) — ISBN 978-0-520-27676-5 (paperback)
eISBN 9780520956698
1. Competition (Psychology) in children.2. Student activities.3. After-school programs.4. Sports for children.5. Parenting.6. Child development.I. Title.
BF723.C6F75 2013
306.874—dc232013021947
Manufactured in the United States of America
22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In keeping with a commitment to support environmentally responsible and sustainable printing practices, UC Press has printed this book on Rolland Enviro100, a 100% post-consumer fiber paper that is FSC certified, deinked, processed chlorine-free, and manufactured with renewable biogas energy. It is acid-free and EcoLogo certified.
For my Family—
Past, Present, and Future
Contents
Preface: Enter to Grow in Wisdom
Introduction: Play to Win
1.Outside Class: A History of American Children’s Competitive Activities
2.More than Playing Around: Studying Competitive Childhoods
3.Cultivating Competitive Kid Capital: Generalist and Specialist Parents Speak
4.Pink Girls and Ball Guys? Gender and Competitive Children’s Activities
5.Carving Up Honor: Organizing and Profiting from the Creation of Competitive Kid Capital
6.Trophies, Triumphs, and Tears: Competitive Kids in Action
Conclusion: The Road Ahead for My Competitive Kids
Appendix: Questioning Kids: Experiences from Fieldwork and Interviews
Notes
Works Cited
Index
Preface
ENTER TO GROW IN WISDOM
I have a favorite gate.
Dexter Gate is one of the walking entrances into Harvard Yard off Massachusetts Avenue. Across the street from Harvard Book Store it proclaims, “Enter to Grow in Wisdom.”
I first walked through the quiet, darkened archway of Dexter Gate as a gawky seventeen-year-old, a recently admitted student visiting campus for the first time from a world away, my hometown in the suburbs of Detroit. At that time I thought anything was possible in the world. I thought that being a college student meant endless opportunity, kindred spirits, and a level playing field. On most counts, I was right.
However, during the first weeks of my freshman year I quickly learned that there was much I did not know. People living in my dorm had gone to historic high schools that I had never heard of. On campus many of them seemed to know each other through some magical network that I was lucky to realize even existed, given how removed I was from it. I did not attend a nationally
