Stereotypes

Last week while standing in the coffee shop waiting for my two pounds of coffee to be ground for the office, there were two gentlemen waiting in line having a conversation. One gentleman a younger guy, balding what used to be black hair, some glasses, wearing a faded pinkish color button down shirt and jeans sporting a messenger bag, as a matter of fact, we will call him, Mess. The other gentleman an much older man, gray balding, in a tweed gray suit, a little pudgy around the mid-drift area, we'll call him Pappy. So Mess was explaining to Pappy that he had read a study done by some institute overseas about education in America and how this study showed that 90% of students who come from lower class homes didn't fare as well as their middle to upper class counterparts. That families who had more money, had smarter students than those of lower income families based on the amount of words heard in the home. That a home with a higher income level used more vocabulary words and the child heard more of a variety of words than a lower income home. So a child from a higher income family was at an advantage for reading, spelling, and writing, because of this higher vocabulary home environment than a lower income child.
That actually really floored me. As a lower income family, I wasn't able to be a stay at home mom, which is one of the other things suggested by this man, however the "vocabulary" in my home isn't much different from the vocabulary of a higher income family. Also, as a savvy mom, I read all the books that said to read to your babies while in the womb, especially poetry, because the repeat words and structure of poetry will help them when they get older. I played classical music while they slept, because Mozart makes babies smarter. I read while they were in the womb, while they were infants and well into the toddler years. While holding my daughter and feeding her a bottle, or while nursing my son, I pulled out a book and read it to them, in the hopes that language would be no problem for either one of them.
Now, how many people actually do that regardless of income?
So, with that being said, both of my children have needed help in the reading & spelling department. My 14 year old daughter can't spell to save her life and struggled with reading, my 6 yr old son, didn't speak for the first two years of his life and had to go into speech therapy to get him to talk. He also struggles with reading though he is doing better than my daughter did.

My point in all this? I think that the stereotype of a lower income family being unable to do for their children as well as a higher income family can is ludicrous, and that children develop differently no matter how they are raised. No matter what you do! How many successful children have we seen come out of poverty? How many who didn't have the love of either parent or support grow up to be successful, smart, prosperous adults? And how many higher income children have we seen grow up to be delinquents? I think these studies need to stop, and that schools shouldn't base their teachings upon them. They should not be taken into consideration when it comes to funding or lesson plans. Children will learn as they want, as their hearts and desires will take them, no matter what the parents will is.

I have tried to force my children into being something they were not. Now, we are taking a step back and allowing them to learn it the best way they can. No child is cookie cutter, no study is ever going to determine or be able to group them into a class when it comes to education. We just need to love and support our children the best way we know how. :)