According to Thorne and Luria, the aspect of childhood experience that serves as one of the main sources of gender differences are the gendered games and social interactions on the playground, making up gender segregation. Boys tend to play more competitive games and band into large groups to get away with rule breaking. They swear more and are more fascinated by sexuality into adolescents rather than fostering relationships with girls. Girls tend to separate into pairs instead of large groups, usually based on their "best friend" of the particular time. They focus on niceness, thoughtfulness and friendships rather than the competitiveness inherent in boys. Children maintain gender segragation through these social rituals and hence form theirdifferent patterns of bonding-boys share the arousal of rule-breaking as a group and girls focus on the construction of intimacy and romance.
According to Goldscheider and Waite children in contemporary families contribute to only about 15% of household tasks, drastically less than children in previous generations. In general, the bigger the family was, the more housework the children did, and overall as children got older they took on more responsibility in the home. The biggest variance between genders rests on the idea of "female chores". Girls prove to participate in five times more chores than boys of the same age. Children interstingly played a greater role in household tasks when living with step-parents than when living with both biological parents.
According to Annette Lareau, the models of childrearing differ by race and class. Middle class parents, regardless of class, enroll their children in leisure activities and organized activities to help foster their personal development. Working class and poor parents leaned more towards natural growth and personal development, naturally due to their economic situation. Consequently, middle-class children, regardless of race, seemed to gain a greater sense of entitlement from their family life, and thus race had much less impact than social class on childrearing.
The signs of commercialization of childhood presented in Juliet Schor’s article are driven by marketing and adverstising. As children watch more TV they are more greatly influenced by the ads they are bombarded with, and thus at a very young age are already aware of and influenced by brand names and materialism. TV, video games, the internet-all sources of commercialization that impressionable children are surrounded by have affected many parts of their lives, including nutrition, unsafe practices such as consuming drugs and alcohol, and most importantly their values and psychological state, which are now heavily guided by materialism and the idea that wealth will make you happy.

According to Joseph Pleck, the role of fathers has noticeably changed in the United States over time. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the father held the role of moral teacher. It was his duty to teach his children reading and writing as well as to ensure they were educated religiously and morally. He was also in charge of the courtship of his children and arranging their marriages. By the twentieth century, parenting responsibilities became highly gendered and the role of the father decreased significantly. The idea of maternal custody gained importance, and with the influence of the industrial revolution, the father's relationship became increasingly distant from his children. However, he still maintained his duty as moral overseer and established discipline. Today, the dominant role of fathers is that of bread winner, with an emphasis on providing for the family, financially in particular. The ideal of the new father has emerged though and is on the rise, which holds the vision of the father being equally as involved as the mother in day to day child care and raising the children. I see this ideal as the primary expectation of fathers today. Fathers now are expected to be involved in all aspects of their children's lives, both of their sons and daughters, and are expected to share the responsibilities in the household that were typically reserved for mothers in the past. I believe that fathers today are expected to shed the heightened masculine stereotype of being the bread winner and adopt a nurturing and involved role instead.
According to Francice Deutsch, couples with children decide to work alternating shifts mainly for financial reasons, especially influenced by the high cost of child care. Many couples also believe that children should be raised by their family for optimum nurturing and development, and are worried about placing the care of their child in the hands of strangers. The decision based on monetary troubles directly relates to class, as a couple of lower socioeconomic standings often to not have the money to pay for outside child care. Choosing to work alternating shifts for this reason is not limited to lower class couples though, as many couples who could afford child care simply do not want to spend that much money on it. The psychological reasons for working alternating shifts is often attributed to the working class. Traditional gender ideology is more highly supported among the working class, who still carry with them the ideal of traditional family life, where the father goes to work and the mother stays home to care for the children. I don't think that I would select an alternating shift policy when I start a family, as although it is economically beneficial, it sets a very rigid schedule for couples, and I feel like it would allow for very little time for my husband and I to be together. So while we would both be spending important time raising our child, we would be lacking the significant time of raising our child together and interacting as a family.
According to Dorothy Roberts, the societal forces that discourage family participation of black fathers include the cultural acceptance of single mothers, as well as the high unemployment and incarceration rates among black men. The elements of black fatherhood that led to the creation of the myth of the Absent Black Father rests highly on the fact that black fathers were not included in the separate spheres ideology. Black men are stigmatized with the label of not being able to financially care for their families, and are overwhelmingly noticed for the instances of negativity surrounding unmarried black fathers, such as illegitimacy and lack of commitment, rather than noticed for the instances where they actually do contribute to their children's wellbeing. Many patterns of black men's behavior actually contradict this myth, especially the fact that black fathers prove to maintain strong contact with their children even when separated from them, and actually provided more informal care and support than white absent fathers.

I would say in general I come from a fairly open-minded and accepting family in terms of race, gender, class and sexuality. In terms of race, my parents sometimes say racist comments, which although unacceptable, i belief to be simply due to their generation, because in practice they are completely accepting of all races. They had no problem when I dated an African American in high school, and are good friends with individuals from many different backgrounds.
In terms of gender, my mom is the dominant one in the family when it comes to making decisions and organizing our lives, and definitely does not take a submissive role to my father. Though my father respects my mother infinitely and is aware that she holds much responsibility in the family, he still holds outdated views on gender, such as that women should cook and clean and always be there to serve and care for their husbands. I think due to how much his mother spoiled him and his brothers, as well as the strictly stereotypical housewife role she led, my father in some way expects, or maybe even wishes for, my mother to lead a similar role. For this reason he always expects the house to be clean and for dinner to be ready and served to him when he comes home from work. This often causes tension in our home as my mother is very strong and independent and sees her role in the family as far from just cooking and cleaning.
Social class and sexuality show a less prominent impression on my family life as they are equally greatly respected. My parents have instilled in us a respect for individuals of every social class as well as a responsibility to help those who are less fortunate. My family is definitely well off however not overly wealthy, so we have a hard work ethic and an appreciation for hard earned money. Sexuality is definitely a highly respected and conservative notion in my family as well. My father is very aware of being respectful to women, and very against degrading and inappropriate comments or actions toward women. This definitely impacted his strictness on us girls dating and his fatherly-figure over-protectiveness.
In general the views that my family has on these issues seem favorable and honorable to me, and in that sense they seem like the ideal family values and thus have shaped my ideas on families in that way. Any negative views on these issues, including racism, stereotyping, ignorance and degradation, would cause tension in the family and have a negative impact on children and their views. I definitely think that the messages that parents send via their views on such issues shape their children's attitudes and actions.
Accordingly, this will affect my future family life by making sure that my husband and I send open, accepting messages about different classes and genders to our children. I think that even regardless of the views we hold, it is imperative to convey an open-minded attitude to our children. I feel that it is important to avoid creating tension in the home based on these important social issues in order to be sure to maintain openness toward diversity.