Emily Parker and Her Family

Chapter 8, “Emily Parker and Her Family,” is the first of four chapters that focus on individual children and their families. Forming the “Persons” part of the book, these chapters provide intimate portraits of the children and their circumstances, complementing the preceding chapters, which focused on normative practices. Emily Parker was the middle child in a middle-class European American family. She was an affectionate child who loved to please people and remained close to her older sister, despite their wrangles. Emily was sensitive to criticism from her parents but was unperturbed by her sister’s jibes. Mr. and Mrs. Parker immersed their children in a rich and varied social life in which Emily developed precocious social skills—evidence, her parents believed, of her high self-esteem. Emily learned to praise herself and to ask adults for help.