Each case study activity varies in the extent to which it emphasizes individual versus team competition. Soccer relies on a strong team structure, while dance develops a slightly weaker but identifiable team element, and chess involves the least amount of team competition. Chess and soccer are inherently competitive, meaning there is almost always a “winner” and a “loser” when a game is played, while dance is inherently expressive, so a competitive structure is imposed on the activity. Finally, the gender makeup of the cases varies. Soccer tends to have the same number of teams for both sexes by age group. Dance is dominated by girls, but there are some boys who participate. Chess, on the other hand, is dominated by boys, though there is a minority of girls as well.
For each activity I had two field sites: one urban, in and around Metro, and one suburban, in West County. Both chess sites—Metro Chess and West County Chess—have organizations that offer group classes, private lessons, chess camps, and regular chess tournaments; but Metro Chess is far more competitive, serious, and developed than West County Chess. The dance field sites, Metroville Elite Dance Academy and Westbrook Let’s Dance Studio, follow a similar pattern, as the Elite Dance Academy is in an urban setting and is much more competitive than the Let’s Dance Studio in the suburbs. Both offer classes, competition rehearsals, and group competition. Finally, the soccer field sites of Westfield Soccer Club and Metro Soccer Co-op offer a different picture, with the former being in a suburban location and highly competitive and the latter being in an urban setting with a greater emphasis on cooperation than competition. Both have nonprofit status and organize travel soccer teams that play in various regional soccer leagues and travel to regional and national tournaments.15
I engaged in six to nine months of intensive observation with each activity, talking informally with those involved, attending tournaments, and taking extensive field notes. During that time I conducted a series of semi-structured interviews with some of the parents, coaches, and children I met. I completed 172 interviews—ninety-five with parents, thirty-seven with children, and the rest with teachers, coaches, and administrators—to explore how competition shapes the lives of these contemporary American families.
As will be discussed, the group of families I met is diverse, though almost all belong to the broadly defined middle class. But variations exist within the middle class, particularly when it comes to education and income, as reflected in the Playing to Win families. On these measures the soccer parents are the most affluent, and the chess and soccer parents are the most educated. The dance parents are the most diverse group in terms of race/ethnicity (a little more than 50 percent are white), while the soccer parents I met are almost universally white (94 percent).
COMPETITION AND EDUCATIONAL CREDENTIALS IN THE UNITED STATES
America is frequently called a competitive country that focuses on achievement, as discussed in the preface. In this context achievement is often exemplified by the acquisition of credentials.16 The scholars Ran dall Collins and James English explain how this increasingly competitive environment has affected various realms in contemporary America—including the corporate world and the arts—as the focus on credentials becomes ever more dominant.17 In particular, as credentials grew ever more important throughout the twentieth century, the educational system became a screening system.
Max Weber, in some of his foundational work in sociology, argues that in a bureaucratic and hierarchical society, social prestige and status are based on credentials. As a consequence, performance on examinations and possession of degrees from particular institutions became centrally important.18 The need to perform well in school and to compete in order to secure a spot when only a limited number are available becomes a high priority. Parents, recognizing the need for their children to be prepared to acquire credentials, have grown to favor “a protected adolescence, curbing any turbulence or independence that might distract their sons [or daughters] from a steady preparation for success.”19
Credentialing tournaments were once limited to adolescence and high school. Outside the classroom, students entered athletic contests, joined debate teams, built “careers” as high school newspaper editors, and in hundreds of other ways sought to distinguish themselves in adolescence.
But today it would seem that for millions of middle-class, twenty-first-century American children, waiting until high school to prove one’s mettle is a mistake because the credentials bottlenecks these kids will face require much more advanced preparation.
Even the preschool set is busily trying to stand out from the crowd.20 Journalist and editor Pamela Paul explains, “Entry into a high-quality preschool (and thereby, the theory goes, a good elementary school, high school, and college) has become cutthroat.”21 In 2011 one mother sued a preschool for destroying her four-year-old daughter’s chances at an Ivy League education.22 While the suit was widely ridiculed, its existence illustrates the extreme parental anxiety that exists today, especially in upper-middle-class communities.
It is tempting to denounce these behaviors and preoccupations as the hyperfixations of neurotic parents who are living through their children. Many pundits are not hesitant to invoke analyses that are just shy of pathology. These parents are labeled “helicopter parents” who hover over their kids from infancy through college graduation, even until children secure employment after college.23
Are these parents crazy? Have they lost their grip? No. Their children face very real gates and gatekeepers through which they need to pass if they are going to achieve in ways similar to their parents. And the probability of that outcome appears to their parents—with good reason given the economic crises of the first decade of the twenty-first century—to be less than it once was. Demographics only heighten this demand, which has spiked in areas where there have been “baby boom-lets,” such as the Northeast.24
Parental concern over future academic options for their children may seem absurd since Baby Boomers and their children, the Echo Boomers, are thus far the best-educated and wealthiest generations ever seen in the United States. But Baby Boomers faced unusual levels of competition for scarce educational resources due both to their numbers and their coming of age when women first entered college in a significant way.25 Hence the cultural experience of competition, of an insufficient supply of spots for the size of the group seeking them, has predisposed these Boomers to see life as a series of contests,26 as Marla explained.
Pamela Druckerman, in her headline-making book claiming that the French raise their children better than Americans do, attributes part of the stress of American parents to changes that started in the 1980s linked to developing in e quality: “Around the same period, the gap between rich and poor Americans began getting much wider. Suddenly, it seemed that parents needed to groom their children to join the new elite. Exposing kids to the right stuff early on—and perhaps ahead of other children the same age—started to seem more urgent.”27
Also, because the Echo Boom is large and has a higher rate of college attendance than ever before, that particular competitive landscape is even more crowded. Popular press coverage of the low college acceptance rates, lower than ever of late at elite private and public universities,28 only fuels parents’ anxiety, buttressing existing anxiety over credentials, and hence contributing to an even more competitive childhood culture. Recent books, such as Crazy U: One Dad’s Crash Course in Getting His Kid into College and The Neurotic Parent’s Guide to College Admissions, capture parental feelings about the college admissions process.29
MOTIVATION FOR AN EARLY START IN THE COLLEGE ADMISSIONS RACE
Parents are working early on to ensure their children get into good colleges and pursue advanced degrees. College is especially important in the United States, where it plays “a pivotal role in shaping future class destinations.”30 The degree of instability that has become an unwelcome staple in the lives of millions
