Class stratification is the scale of social classes, upper, middle, and lower classes. Everyone of us is born into a certain class but people are able to move within their class or even between classes, which is called social mobility. As class stratification persists, it widens the gap between the rich and the poor. One example of this takes place back in the 1890’s. When there was a new wave of industrialization within the U.S. there were three main men who “ran the show”, so to speak. Andrew Carnegie, JP Morgan, and John Rockerfeller were men you were born into wealth and made their wealth for their families grow by the time they died. When you combined the three’s wealth it came to more then what the entire country had at the time. Once JP Morgan loaned the country money to get them out of financial trouble. The three were fierce competitors.

They always tried to  “take out”, heave the others go bankrupt or sell, the others. At one point the three joined forces to promote a rebublican, McKinley, who ended up being the president of the United States, Now they had supreme power. This shows that the rich just got richer. These three men made the top 1% of the entire nations wealth. They were to the point that they wanted more money so they had their workers work long hours for little pay. To top it off the conditions they worked in were horrible but the workers needed to feed their families so they had no choice but to take what they got. According to some statistics 1 in every 11 workers died each year due to the conditions.

This is proof, in one way, that the rich just kept getting richer while the poor seemed to barely get by. If the only person in the family was the one who got killed in the factory then the familiy would experience social mobility but it only would go one way it would be for the worse. They would fall from the working class to a lower class and end up in complete poverty.

The websites are information to tell behind these men to show how you need money to make money and to prove that some didn’t treat their workers very kindly.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._P._Morgan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Carnegie

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller

 

 

          Building gender socialization starts at birth and grows with us throughout are lives. We all learn by watching and because a lot of what children see helps them shape their identities about who they are we, as parents, need to know what we teach them will benefit them in the future. Children not only learn from the people that surround them in their life but also learn and get ideas from something as simple as a commercial that happens to pop up right before their favorite show is about to come on. They are witnessing gender socialization and they don’t even realize it. I was even unaware of how something as simple as a commercial could influence the thought process of a child.

          While looking at a Christmas magazine with my child we came across a toy that she noticed that she would like to have the chance to play with but don’t me she couldn’t because it was for boys. I had asked her why she thought that and she told me that on the commercial it showed a girl being “grossed out” by the toy so girls wouldn’t want to play with it. So I asked her if it bothered her or grossed her out and she told me it didn’t. I told her as long as it didn’t bother her and that she would enjoy using it, then it wasn’t just for boys.

          That short conversation was a real eye opener as a parent as in how, toys especially, are marketed to children. My daughter has grown up around going camping, fishing, getting dirty, and 4-wheelers. All of which are stereotyped as boys activities. What we teach our children is so important for their futures. We need to teach them that as long as we try hard enough and dream big enough, whether or not it says it is just for girls or just for boys, you can accomplish anything.

 

http://voices.yahoo.com/gender-socialization-children-2632765.html?cat=25

http://www.unc.edu/~dcderosa/STUDENTPAPERS/childrenbattles/toysrusdenise.htm

http://gozips.uakron.edu/~susan8/parinf.htm

Staying home full-time to take care of your children is an option that most of us can’t take on. With the economy the way it is mothers have no choice but to have a full-time paying job. This wasn’t always the case.

Since the beginning of the 19th century motherhood as an institution has changed. Women started off being the one who was told to stay home to teach and educate their children but this was only for the middle-class white women. Colored women were still expected to go out into the work force. They were, in a sense, deemed unfit to take care of and educated their own children.

In the 20th century, women wanted to work outside of the home but were considered, by child experts, not a good mother if they didn’t stay home with their children. This was due to research that indicated how benifical it is for children to be home with their mothers.

Now in the 21st century most women have no choice, financially speaking, to be at home with their children. Either they need more then one income in the household or they are a single parent who can’t afford daycare. This puts limits on our choices as mothers. We want to provide for our children, but are in a hardship.

In any case motherhood is what keeps our society going. If we, as women, do not reproduce then our society, one day, could disappear.

http://www.njmac.ca/taf/issue9/mother.htm

http://suite101.com/article/social-institution-of-motherhood-a64879