Brown Bag: RAISING THE SECURE CHILD: Parenting among Affluent Families Experiencing Unemployment

Affluent parents play an important role in the reproduction of social inequalities, especially in a context of increased inequality and economic uncertainty. However, we lack a clear understanding of how the classed project of parenting unfolds in a context of constraint during an acute moment of economic uncertainty: unemployment. This article considers: how do affluent parents experiencing unemployment conceive of their parental obligations, and how do they strive to fulfil these? Using a dataset of over 100 in-depth interviews and family observations, I have the following findings. First, parents deploy strategies of framing to ensure that their children feel secure. Parents frame their unemployment as being in their control. Through strategies of normalcy, parents bolster strategies of framing. Through strategies of normalcy, parents  seek to minimize any disruptions to their children’s lifestyle, particularly pertaining to education, enrichment activities, and the creation of family memories. Finally, parents utilize strategies of kinship in order to garner the resources to uphold their strategies of normalcy. This study illuminates three mechanisms underlying maintenance of advantage in a context of acute economic uncertainty.