Adult Supervision Required: Private Freedom and Public Constraints for Parents and Children

Acknowledgments

ix Acknowledgments I am grateful for the many friends, colleagues, family members, and students who expressed an interest in my ideas and encouraged me in this work during the past few years. First and foremost, I thank all the parents who allowed me to interview them and who so generously shared with me their perspectives on the struggles and triumphs of parenting. Liz Hart transcribed the interviews and shared her own experiences with parenting, as well. Financial support for this project was provided by Wellesley College’s awards for faculty scholarship. Because of Wellesley’s financial support, I was privileged to have the assistance of several undergraduate students at various points in this process. I especially thank Sanja Jagesic, Rebekah Rosenfeld, Danielle Boudrow, and Katy Walline for their capable assistance and good cheer. I received both financial and intellectual support for this work from the Newhouse Center for the Humanities at Wellesley College. My cohort of Newhouse fellows provided an engaging and stimulating interdisciplinary backdrop for thinking through this project. It was an honor to share ideas with Margaret Burnham, John Carson, Cathleen Cummings, Lidwien Kapteijns, Tim Peltason, Carol Oja, Maria San Filippo, Bryan Turner, Daniel Ussishkin, Heidi Voskuhl, and Ellen Widmer. In particular, my heartfelt thanks go to Ann Velenchik and Vini Datta for careful attention to my half-formed ideas and for providing much-needed moral support and reassurance that the pieces would come together in their own time. I am grateful to my colleagues in the sociology department—Lee Cuba, Tom Cushman, Jonathan Imber, Peggy Levitt, Smitha Radhakrishnan, and Joe Swingle— for their support and especially for stepping in to help when I experienced a sudden illness at the end of the project. Without their help covering classes, meeting with students, and even providing dinner for my family, I could not have finished revisions on time while I was recovering from surgery. Thanks are also due a million times over to Adriana Mihal, who makes my life easier in countless ways. Others at Wellesley who have served as key reminders to me that the scholar’s life need not be solitary include Donna Patterson, Sally Theran, Don Elmore, Barbara Beatty, Ken Hawes, and Nancy Genero. I am indebted to all those who offered helpful comments and feedback on earlier versions of my research and this manuscript. This is a better work because of the responses and suggestions I received from Barbara Beatty, Garry Breland, Mary Beth Breland, Tom Cushman, Anita Garey, Julia Grant, Ken Hawes, Rosanna Hertz, Jonathan Imber, Annette Lareau, Peter Mickulas, Murray Milner, Peggy Nelson, Jason Rutherford, Felicia Song, Bryan Turner, and Marlie Wasserman. I am especially grateful to the editors at Rutgers University Press, the series editors who shepherded this work, and copy editor Lisa Jerry for her careful attention to detail. Any remaining errors, of course, are my own. Parts of this argument were previously published in December 2009 in Qualitative Sociology. They are used here with permission. Finally, I could not have completed this book without the inspiration and support of my family. My own parents taught me most of what I know about good parenting. My extraordinary children, Annabelle and Daniel, are teaching me the rest. Although they deserve a mother who spends more time doing parenting than writing about parenting, they have never complained about the mother they have. I am proud of the many ways they contribute to our family and community, and I hope that what I have learned in this process will benefit them as they continue to grow into responsible and independent members of our society. My husband, Jason, has my undying admiration and utmost appreciation for cheerfully doing the thankless chores, for patiently nurturing our kids, for encouraging me to believe in my ideas, and for sustaining me with his unfailing love. Acknowledgments x Adult Supervision Required ...