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Defining the 'good mother' and the 'professional teacher': parent-teacher
relationships in an affluent school district
Mary Landerosa
a
Department of Sociology, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, USA
First published on: 20 October 2010
To cite this Article Landeros, Mary(2010) 'Defining the 'good mother' and the 'professional teacher': parent-teacher
relationships in an affluent school district', Gender and Education,, First published on: 20 October 2010 (iFirst)
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Gender and Education
2010, 1–16, iFirst Article
ISSN 0954-0253 print/ISSN 1360-0516 online
© 2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/09540253.2010.491789
http://www.informaworld.com
Defining the ‘good mother’ and the ‘professional teacher’:
parent–teacher relationships in an affluent school district
Mary Landeros*
Department of Sociology, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, USA
Taylor and FrancisCGEE_A_491789.sgm
(Received 15 June 2009; final version received 11 January 2010)
10.1080/09540253.2010.491789Gender and Education0954-0253 (print)/1360-0516 (online)Original Article2010Taylor & Francis00000000002010Dr. MaryLanderosmlanderos@sbcglobal.net
This article examines the challenges of parent–teacher relationships in an affluent
school district, drawing on 30 in-depth interviews of mothers and elementary
school teachers in the USA. Professional women who have put their careers on
hold to care for their children are apt to define being a good mother in terms of the
academic achievement of their children. This results in extreme amounts of
involvement and advocacy in their child’s education, even when such actions have
questionable effects on the larger school population. Enhancement of ‘good
mothering’ was found to be done at the expense of teacher professionalism. A
small number of entitled-minded mothers were able to make a large impact not
only on teacher job satisfaction but on the climate of the entire school due to their
extensive networks, levels of advocacy, and critical examination of school
processes.
Keywords: parent–teacher relationships; elementary education; gender;
motherhood; entitlement; education – parent participation
Introduction
The parent–teacher partnership is considered one of the most important factors for a
child’s educational success. Although the term ‘parental involvement’ is regularly
used, a more accurate term would be ‘mother’s involvement’ (David 1993). The roles
of women are heavily overlaid with domestic and status production for the family,
with concern for children and schooling being the domain of women (Brantlinger
2003). Educational work done by mothers enables schools to function at a competitive
level, a fundamental feature to reproducing the class structure of the community
(Griffith and Smith 2005).
Involvement in education requires both cognitive and emotional care work
(O’Brien 2007) and ‘accord(s) mothers an infinite responsibility for the well-being of
their children and for their achievements at school’ (Smith 1987, 22). Within a
competitive society, caring is a subordinate activity, defined in intimate and personal
terms, and translated into the pre-existing models of the family. Caring, assigned to
mothers within the larger society’s division of labour, involves individual needs rather
than the needs of the general society. A competitive society conceives of care as a
private good rather than a broad and public value; to care for one’s child is to make
sure they have a competitive edge against other children (Tronto 2002). This
*Email: mlanderos@niu.edu
DownloadedBy:[Landeros,Mary]At:19:3823January2011

2 M. Landeros
competitive edge, or cultural capital, consists of individual prestige and social
qualities transmitted through the family, but is also dependent on ‘usable time, partic-
ularly in the form of mother’s free time’ (Bourdieu 1986, 253).
Student achievement and parental involvement take on additional complexity in an
affluent school district. Educational policy in the USA is heavily dependent on stan-
dardised testing for both individual student and overall school assessment. Publication
of aggregate student achievement results in a comparative public assessment of school
districts; determining to a certain extent the relative home values and community
desirability of the district within the economic marketplace. The reporting of
aggregate school achievement therefore indirectly represents the economic accom-
plishments of the community.
In addition, particularly in an affluent area, individual student achievement comes
to represent not only personal student ability, but also the status of the parents,
particularly the mother, and a reflection of her dedicated involvement. It becomes, in
effect, a defining and visible factor of whether she is a ‘good mother’. The degree of
participation shown by mothers becomes a proxy measure of love, care, and concern
beyond the realm of schooling (Smrekar and Cohen-Vogel 2001). This emphasis on
parental involvement as integral to student success shifts any blame for a lack of
achievement on to the parents, especially mothers (Dudley-Marling 2001). Although
unofficial educational policy, shifting blame on to parents fits into the neoliberal trend
of contemporary capitalism which transfers more and more fiscal responsibilities
away from the control of the public sector and on to the private sector.
Middle-class parents are skilled in using their social, economic and cultural capital
to their advantage, especially within the educational system. In particular, small
groups of particularly entitled-minded mothers can exert considerable influence on the
educational process by pressuring school personnel to put their preferences into effect
due to the information networks they possess and their heightened attitude of advo-
cacy. The critical examination of school processes that these mothers bring to parent–
teacher interactions are extremely powerful in shaping not only their own children’s
schooling, but other students as well, even when such actions are not for the benefit
of all (Brantlinger 2003; Kroeger 2005).
Psychological entitlement is a stable and pervasive sense that one deserves more
and is entitled to more than others (Campbell et al. 2004). Individuals with a sense of
entitlement tend to be leaders, and exert significant influence on processing social
information and decision making (DeCremer and Van Dijk 2005). Entitled-minded
mothers anticipate that they will have a special function within the educational system
and therefore have additional responsibilities. As a consequence, they anticipate they
will have to put more into the system (in terms of involvement) and reason they are
entitled to a more than equal share.
It is the premise of this study that the manifestations of entitled behaviour are
influenced by a school district’s placement in the economic marketplace. Success in a
neoliberal economy requires citizens to be creative, entrepreneurial and businesslike,
facilitating a range of self-management strategies to temper the risks associated with
the global economy (Burns 2008). While the educational work done by mothers
contributes to reproducing the class structure of the affluent community (Griffith and
Smith 2005), the self-management strategies employed by entitled-minded mothers
further heightens their own individual and family status within that same community.
The affluence of a school district can therefore create heightened challenges for
the other half of the educational partnership – teachers – as they negotiate

Gender and Education 3
relationships with parents. The profession of teaching is highly gendered, making the
parent–teacher relationship primarily one among women. Elementary education in
particular has traditionally been viewed as a woman’s field due to an emphasis on
emotional care work over the craft of teaching. A lack of social respect and under-
standing of the skills and training required of teachers cause many in the general
public to view them as semi-professionals (Culkin 1999). Taken-for-granted notions
of gender so pervade the world of work that elementary teachers often have their
abilities slighted and their contributions ignored (Hey 2002). In addition, in a capitalist
culture where meritocracy provides advancement and salary enhancement, teachers
often forgo the rewards and status available to others with similar educational creden-
tials. The choice of teaching as a profession involves valuing service to the community
over personal ambition and a connection to children over instrumental competition in
the workplace, further devaluing the profession from a capitalistic perspective (Van
Galen 2004).
The resources and social spaces that parents occupy significantly influence how
often, how easily, and over what range of issues they approach in regard to schooling
(Vincent and Martin 2002). While teachers view professionalism as key to their role,
affluent, middle-class parents are also professionals, often possessing higher educa-
tional or status levels than their child’s teacher. Time Magazine quotes Columbia
University Teacher’s College sociology professor Amy Stuart Wells:
You have a lot of mothers who have been in the work force, supervising other people,
who have a different sense of empowerment and professionalism about them. When they
drop out of the work force to raise their kids, they see being part of the school as part of
their job. (Gibbs 2005, 55)
Annette Lareau, sociology professor at Temple University, is quoted in the same
article:
Middle class parents are far less respectful. They’re not a teacher, but they could have
been a teacher, and often their profession has a higher status than teachers. So they are
much more likely to criticize teachers on professional grounds. (Gibbs 2005, 58)
Regardless of this tension, both teachers and parents, particularly mothers, tend to
define themselves in relation to the student that they have in common, and some
measure of self-esteem is bound up with that student. Both parents and teachers state
that they want their contributions recognised and appreciated by the other, desiring the
recognition of a job well done (Miretzky 2004).
Numerous studies have found the emotional work of school involvement to be
frustrating, burdensome, and intimidating for mothers (Dudley-Marling 2001; Lareau
1989; Reay 2000), often done ‘without expectation of recognition or reward, and at
specific costs to their own well being’ (O’Brien 2007, 160). This study takes a
different perspective on the issue based on a school district’s placement in the
competitive economic marketplace. In an affluent community, the emotional labour
that mothers invest in education can indeed provide a distinct benefit above and
beyond their child’s academic achievement. Mothers evaluate their participation in
the educational system both in terms of school expectations as well as those of other
mothers (Griffith and Smith 2005). A child recognised by the larger school commu-
nity as excelling academically provides the tangible benefit of enhancing the status
of ‘good mother’. This recognition impacts how mothers negotiate their relationships

4 M. Landeros
with teachers, as well the efforts teachers must make to maintain their own
professional status.
This research focuses on how mothers and teachers negotiate their relationships
and socially construct their respective roles within the context of an upper middle-
class, highly educated and competitive community. The conflicting ideals of feminism
with traditional definitions of motherhood compel successful, career-oriented women
to redefine the ‘good mother’. The same social forces also challenge how teachers
define and defend their own professionalism, exacerbating both the benefits and chal-
lenges of the parent–teacher relationship in an affluent school district. This study
examines how affluence and competition create social conditions that steer small
groups of entitled-minded mothers working toward individualistic, goals benefiting
their own children over the greater good to alter the tone of the larger school popula-
tion, ultimately undermining the goals of a democratic educational system, while at
the same time challenging teacher professionalism.
Methodology
This research employed in-depth, taped and transcribed interviews with 16 teachers
and 14 mothers from an affluent school district located in the suburban area of a large
Midwestern city in the USA. Interviews consisted of open-ended questions aimed at
understanding how mothers and teachers construct their roles within an atmosphere of
affluence and competition.
The school district examined represented an educated community, with the
majority of the population, over 57%, holding a bachelor’s degree or higher and nearly
54% employed in management or professional occupations. The median household
income, over $73,000, is well above the national average, with one-third of the popu-
lation reporting incomes from $100,000 to $200,000 or more. In addition, when Social
Security, supplemental security income, public assistance and retirement income are
taken out of the calculation, the mean earnings increase to over $91,000 (US Census
Bureau 2002). The vast majority of the district were White (90%), lived in family
households (70.8%) in which over 61% were married. Almost 44% of women with
children under the age of six in this area are employed in the labour force.
The school district examined consisted of one preschool centre, 13 elementary
schools (K–5), four middle schools and two high schools. Eleven of the 13 elementary
schools in the district are represented in this study. The percentage of students meeting
or exceeding state academic standards is 88.7% in the district, compared to the state
percentage of 74.8. Overall, 75.9% of teachers in this district have a master’s degree
or higher, compared to the state average of 53.2% (Illinois Department of Education
2007–8).
The 30 participants interviewed consisted of both teachers and parents from the
district, chosen using a snowball method for specific attributes to allow for adequate
comparisons and analysis. Since parental involvement tends to decrease as children
reach higher grades, all of the 16 teachers interviewed taught at the elementary school
level. Fourteen were classroom teachers, one was a reading specialist, and one was a
Talented and Gifted (TAG) teacher. Teaching experience ranged from three to
33 years. One teacher was male, the other 15 were female. Four teachers held Bache-
lor’s degrees in elementary education, one was currently enrolled in a Master’s degree
programme, 10 held Master’s degrees, and one participant was enrolled in a Doctoral
programme. All of the teachers were White.

Fourteen mothers were interviewed. All but one was married; she being a single
mother, never married. Four of the mothers had a high school degree only, one had an
Associate’s degree, six had Bachelor’s degrees, two had Master’s degrees and one had
a Jurist Doctorate. Five mothers were home full-time with their children, while four
worked part-time and five worked full-time outside the home. An important aspect of
those women who worked part-time is that they each held flexible jobs, allowing
considerable free time to devote to their child’s education.
Data coding and analysis were done manually. Numerous themes emerged as
relevant factors contributing to how parent–teacher relationships were constructed in
an affluent area. The following discussion summarises key aspects of these findings.
Affluence creates an atmosphere of competition
In a society where rewards are believed to be based on merit, the achievement of an
upper middle-class lifestyle reflects intelligence, determination and hard work.
Parents who embody these attributes believe they pass on similar characteristics and
values to their children. This study found that the high expectations of the area are felt
by students, parents, and teachers alike, and an undercurrent of competition underlies
the educational process. A first-grade teacher who also grew up in the district said
‘[This town] makes you feel stupid. It makes you feel like you are nothing unless you
are in the top 1–2%. And if you don’t get a college degree, there is something wrong’.
Competition in the form of having a high-achieving child is ever present to parents. A
teacher noted, ‘Parents want their kids to be successful. They compare their children
to those of neighbours and friends’.
Children who struggled or performed poorly in school elicited feelings of deficient
mothering and intense feelings of guilt. Mothers in this study continually discussed
how they hired tutors, believed they should be doing more to help their children, or
wished they had done things differently in the past because they were not pleased with
their child’s current school performance. One mother discussed her distress upon
discovering a requirement for her second grader was a timed test of 50 addition and
subtraction problems. While this was a goal that needed to be accomplished before the
end of the school year, this parent spoke of having not properly prepared her child for
this task ahead of time.
I thought, oh my gosh, we are behind, and I addressed it with the teacher about the math.
They do these time tests which no one tells you about, 50 problems. I am really
concerned, I feel behind. We didn’t know she was responsible, and we worked with her
this summer, I bring in a college student.
This parent expresses not only discomfort that her child does not start the second
grade with end of year competence, but equally disturbing to her is being unaware of
the requirement. Her comment is an example of self-management done to limit risks
and ensure success in a neoliberal economy. Being one of the first to pass the timed
tests carries public recognition (as students pass the tests, their names are prominently
placed on a classroom bulletin board), while being one of the last to finish carries a
stigma. This supports previous findings that mothers tend to over-identify when their
children experience difficulties in school (Dudley-Marling 2001; Reay 2000).
An interesting paradox is that above-average performance on a state or national
level is merely viewed as average in the district studied where the majority of students

6 M. Landeros
perform at high levels. ‘Average’ students were also found to cause considerable
stress to parents. The competitive atmosphere of the district led to unique ways of
handling the issue. A teacher who resides in the same neighbourhood as her school
told of tutoring students over the summer break, and the concern parents had for others
discovering they were receiving extra help.
I tutor in the summer, and some parents will say ‘We don’t want anyone to know we are
doing this’. They don’t want anyone to know because it would be perceived that their
child was doing poorly, they don’t want anyone to think that, and not that I would go
around and say who I was working with!
In a school district with a highly educated parent population, a child needs to be
performing at an accelerated academic level to truly stand out. Therefore, having a
child enrolled in the TAG programme (accelerated reading and mathematics
programmes beginning in third grade) becomes a status symbol for both the child and
the parent. One teacher stated ‘the label has become a big issue in our district’. Teach-
ers regularly reported parents demanding enrolment in TAG, stating that their children
needed to be ‘challenged’. A common sentiment heard from teachers was ‘there are a
lot of average students that their parents think are superstars’. An interesting finding
was that while many parents made demands that their ‘gifted’ children be provided a
more challenging curriculum; other parents would refuse pull-out programmes for
their children if they were remedial in nature. According to a kindergarten teacher:
I have had parents refuse [remedial assistance]; they do not want their child associated
with that. I have even had someone say if their child does this, will they still be able to
get into TAG? And I say, they just need a little jump start and they can go anywhere!
They will not be in it forever. I am not a parent, so I don’t know exactly how it feels, but
I thought, how can you turn down this help?
Teachers repeatedly lamented that parents turned down recommendations for their
child to be given remedial help. A fifth-grade teacher stated:
You have to wonder, is the concern really for your child, or is it because you don’t want
to say I have a child in [a remedial programme]. They don’t like the stigma. [The chil-
dren] are getting special attention, so the parents panic.
Teachers also told of parents who, rather than accepting the recommendation that their
child needed additional help in a particular area, would attempt to explain the
perceived ‘deficit’ as an error on the teacher’s part. A kindergarten teacher explained
the defensive reaction of some parents when confronted with her concerns:
They get so defensive when you have something, you bring it to them, you are concerned
about this, concerned because they aren’t progressing the way that you would hope.
Instead of oh, what can I do, they will come up with reasons. He is probably not that
interested in that, or, how do you teach that? Right back to me. Where is he sitting? Are
you sure that he can see from back there?
In this case, not only must teachers bring up the concerns they have, but must also
convince parents of their validity. In a competitive and affluent community, having a
child who excels and stands out among his or her peers is a status symbol, for the
success of the child reflects upon the success of the parent, and in particular the
mother’s active involvement in the educational process. On the other hand, children

who are somehow lacking, i.e. are merely ‘average’, or worse, in need of remedial
assistance, cause considerable distress to parents. The recommendation of the need for
outside remediation threatens the conception of the ‘good mother’. As a result,
concern shifts to the child’s (and mother’s) reputation rather than on strategies of
improvement, or to a questioning of the professionalism and abilities of the teacher.
In either case, improving the academic abilities of the child is not the primary focus.
What is a good mother?
Motherhood is a status position accompanied by a litany of expected behaviours that
exemplify the role of mother. While motherhood obviously continues to be a consis-
tent status in society, the role expectations that accompany ‘good mothering’ are in
flux. Despite the continued entry of women into the labour force, domestic and chil-
drearing responsibilities remain overwhelmingly female. Mothers are judged, both by
themselves and others, by countless contradictory forces in terms of their parenting.
This study found certain mothers were more vocal in equating good mothering
with participation in their child’s education. Identified as ‘entitled-minded’ mothers,
they chose to leave or postpone successful positions to stay home with their children
during the elementary years, transferring all of their energy, determination and efforts
into a new career of maternal professionalism. The transferring of successful corpo-
rate skills and techniques to the realm of caring and education is accompanied by a
need to see immediate results, making the overt recognition and acceptance into the
TAG programme so imperative. Accruing the label is a form of acknowledging a
parent’s love and devotion, further legitimating demands for more challenging work
for a kindergartner or the employing of tutors over the summer. The child becomes the
product whose success reflects the mother’s own hard work and investment.
The number of mothers in this study who were classified as ‘entitled minded’ was
numerically small, yet their influence was disproportional to their numbers. Their
education and financial resources provided social and informational networks that
enhanced their individual causes and status. They engaged in behaviour benefiting
their particular children as opposed to the good of the larger school population. The
entitled-minded mothers were also the most vocal in challenging teacher profession-
alism, creating a great amount of difficulty and distress for teachers.
The ‘good mother’ as advocate: the role of school volunteerism
The mothers in this study all mentioned the importance of being an educational
advocate. To properly advocate for one’s child, a mother needs to know what is going
on in the school, how her child interacts and compares to other children of the same
age, have the ear of the classroom teacher, as well as be fully present in her child’s
education.
Volunteering in the classroom is one way the mothers in this study became
advocates. Despite receiving school-wide as well as classroom weekly or bi-weekly
newsletters, the majority of mothers did not feel that this alone gave them enough infor-
mation about their child’s schooling. A mother who volunteers once a month in her
son’s room stated ‘I do arts appreciation in that room for that reason, to find out what’s
going on. Because otherwise you don’t know what goes on in the school’. This mother
felt that a once a month visit to her son’s classroom was enough to fill in the blanks
and provide her with an adequate sense of understanding. However, it was found that

8 M. Landeros
the entitled-minded mothers believed they needed to be present to a much greater
extent; one stating that if not physically present in the school on a near daily basis, ‘I
wouldn’t know what’s going on. You kind of have a feel for it, but not as well as the
parents who go in once a week, or once every two weeks’. This reflects a belief that
there is an ‘inner circle’ of privileged knowledge that is only available to the mothers
who are willing to physically and mentally immerse themselves in the goings-on of
the school. For the entitled-minded parent, this is the definition of the ‘good mother’.
It is interesting that while mothers such as this become ‘regulars’ in the school, their
continued presence is a point of contention for other parents. A part-time attorney with
two children who volunteers weekly in the library-learning centre at her child’s school
reflected on the almost constant presence of some mothers in the school: ‘When you
are at school, you see the same people there all the time. You step back and think, are
you really that involved; do you have nothing else to do?’ Included with comments
such as this was the question of whether children of overly involved mothers received
any special treatment compared to their own children. The same parent stated:
As much as they [the teachers] try and be fair, yes. In some ways they are getting pref-
erential treatment, where in the back of your mind you are wondering, hey, has my child
gotten that opportunity or that break?
Parental concern of favouritism toward the ‘regulars’ was met with mixed remarks by
the teachers. When asked whether they gave the children of their regular volunteers
any special considerations, half of the teachers interviewed responded with an imme-
diate ‘no’. The response was not so quick for the others. Many hedged on the answer,
but then stated honestly that yes, they did have a different attitude toward these
parents. One teacher stated: ‘More known, more seen, more attention to my child; it’s
a cause–effect, although an unintentional cause–effect’. While the time mothers invest
in schooling contributes to unequal educational outcomes between schools (Griffith
and Smith 2005), time differentials of mothers in the same school also create addi-
tional, albeit unintentional, inequality.
Active involvement in education requires time, flexibility, and financial resources.
The level of involvement mothers invest often depends on the extent to which their
husband’s earnings make their time available (Griffith and Smith 2005). Therefore
being truly involved requires sufficient income to support a stay-at-home or part-time
employed parent. In this affluent school district, the stay-at-home mother achieves
additional status because her labour is not required to maintain the family standard of
living. Mothers who made the choice to stay home full-time implied this was a form
of superior mothering. An entitled-minded mother stated:
I stayed home, I made that conscious choice, I could have a lot more money and a lot
more things if I went back to work, and maybe I will some day, but I think, the people
that are working and maybe not taking the time out to be their advocate for their child,
the kid is going to miss out, and so are they. That is just my own personal opinion on it.
Not only is staying home a good choice, or possibly a sacrifice, but it also implies that
the spouse is sufficiently compensated to maintain the current standard of living. In a
competitive environment, staying home with one’s children, as in volunteering, is not
always about the children, but about recognition of the status of the adults.
The implication of the mother as responsible for a child’s school performance
combined with the competitive atmosphere of this community resulted in contentious

relationships between teachers and entitled-minded mothers. These mothers were
found to promote actions to benefit their own children with often questionable conse-
quences for the children of others. A kindergarten teacher described the reaction of a
group of entitled-minded parents to the presence of a main-streamed special education
child in her classroom who they believed was ‘bringing down’ the academic achieve-
ment of the entire class.
The group of parents that I have had to deal with, they are ex-business parents, they are
very vocal, they are stay-at-home moms now, and they have done their research, and
they are looking at law suits that work for them in Maryland, that provided restraining
orders for their children that they should not be within certain seats of this particular
child so they are bringing all of their research in and presenting it.
Entitled-minded mothers possess extensive social and professional networks, knowl-
edge of legal issues, and a determination to have their interests implemented. This
makes them significant forces to teachers, individual schools as well as the entire
district, and a group that needs to be understood by administrators and educators.
When not held in check, the actions of a few can have extensive consequences to the
extended school population.
Affluence and competition intensify the struggle of women to redefine mother-
hood amid conflicting traditional images with the social changes and opportunities
brought by the feminist movement. Combined with the perception that motherhood is
a career – an all-encompassing, full-time endeavour that must show results, advocat-
ing for one’s child becomes the highest calling one can achieve. Motherhood takes on
a new dimension – one of positioning in the hierarchy of power established in the
school, the community, and the larger society. However, this study found that as enti-
tled-minded mothers enhanced their own status as ‘good mothers’, this was often done
at the expense of the status of the professional teachers that they came into contact
with throughout their child’s schooling.
What is a professional teacher?
The teachers in this study believed professionalism a key factor in their role as
educators. Professionalism is gained through extensive education that provides a
body of knowledge enabling one to perform a job that others without such creden-
tials could not. There was not one teacher in this study who did not believe him- or
herself to be a professional. In addition, every teacher mentioned the importance of
parental involvement; all said that education requires a team effort, with parents
being an integral part of the process. A kindergarten teacher expressed this
position:
I look at team destination as everybody on a team might not have equal rights to the final
end, but their contribution is a part of making sure that the common goal at the end is
what you both wanted for the child. When I say team, I’m still leading that team because
it’s the educational objective that I need to fulfil, but their input, because they are the
ones that know their children the best, are as guidelines that I really have to know about
in order to meet my guidelines and do it in a manner that will be the most effective and
productive.
This teacher acknowledges intimate parental knowledge, yet views her own profes-
sional knowledge as the prominent feature for a child’s academic success. All teachers

10 M. Landeros
held this perspective, yet expressed dismay at the lack of respect given to the
profession of teaching in general, as summarised by a fifth-grade teacher:
They don’t respect our expertise anymore, they don’t respect the fact that we have gone
through four, five, nine years of college, solely on this topic. Especially in the elementary
level, because there isn’t information that is so hard, parents do know the majority of the
information that we are teaching, but there is so much more that goes into teaching than
information. It really isn’t about getting information.
This lack of respect was demonstrated in how the mothers of this study responded to
the question of whether teachers were professionals. Responses ranged from, ‘Well,
they should be!’ to ‘I guess so’. While the majority did eventually admit that teachers
were professionals, none were quick to answer affirmatively. However, it was the enti-
tled-minded mothers who most adamantly challenged teacher professionalism, partic-
ularly in terms of who held superior knowledge of the child. One such mother gave
the following response when asked about the professional training of teachers:
From what I understand, they have to take child development, child psychology, all
kinds of classes, again though, I think book smart and common sense, some people are
just better at working with children, I think some people really like children, respond
well to kids. And other people, it is like they forget what it is like to be a child. I think
as a parent, though, we are experts many times with our kids. A mom knows their child.
This parent is disregarding the professional training and research gained by teachers
and placing her own knowledge of her child as foremost in importance for the child’s
education. Her attitude is that a good teacher is one who can work with children, not
one with specialised knowledge about the areas she mentions – child development or
child psychology. While it is certainly true that there are some teachers who are better
or more popular than others, all have similar training. The entitled-minded mothers of
this study put their own common sense and ‘mother’s intuition’ ahead of teacher
professionalism. By undervaluing a teacher’s ability to influence a child, they elevate
their own good mother status.
The lack of acknowledgement of the teachers’ professional status is linked to the
atmosphere of competition in an affluent area and the socioeconomic status of the resi-
dents. A fifth-grade teacher summarised this concept well: ‘I think in our society,
money carries power. And this is never going to be a profession where you have
money to back up what you are doing. I don’t know what could be done to change it’.
Teachers want their contributions recognised and appreciated and desire the recogni-
tion of a job well done (Miretzky 2004). In a profession that lacks salary based on
merit, it was found that in this district, teachers were given recognition in the form of
gifts during the holidays and at the end of the school year. A fifth-grade teacher stated:
‘Families here are so affluent – it is overwhelming in terms of the generous gifts they
give. Sometimes I have to step back and wonder if I should take the gift or not’.
The district examined consisted overwhelmingly of upper middle-class house-
holds, however, certain areas of the community included a small concentration of
lower-income, often English-limited families, clustered into two schools. These
students were grouped into classrooms together to accommodate remedial pull-out
programmes, resulting in one teacher per grade level having a concentration of lower-
income children. In a district where recognition and appreciation of a teacher’s ability
is attained through the generous gifts of parents, how does this influence those

teachers teaching the low-income students? A first-grade teacher who taught the class-
room with the lower-income students for the past couple of years, many of them
English as Second Language (ESL) students, commented:
Sometimes as a teacher, as rude as this may sound, it’s difficult. One year I got a neck-
lace with a sapphire pendant. It was beautiful, I wear it, I love it, I got tickets to Cirque
du Soleil. I know I was spoiled, and it was almost like kind of an out-do-you. I have to
remember, I have to say I teach because I love to teach. But sometimes I’m like, wait!
My gifts aren’t very big! That is something that I have to get over. But it’s that whole
dynamic of an expectation; if you’ve got lots of gifts you are doing a great job. This year
I’ve got four ESL students. They are barely paying the school fees. I had ESL last year
too, and I didn’t get all the accolades from the parents, because they one, didn’t know to
give the accolades. I’m a professional; I should be doing that job.
This was a very honest assessment of how it feels to be the teacher with the academ-
ically needy students year after year, reflecting on much more than the receiving of
gifts. In many ways, parent responses are the ways in which teachers are recognised
for doing a good job. In other professions, a job well done is recognised by a promo-
tion or bonus. In the teaching profession, however, one is not promoted from first
grade to second grade. Pay raises are granted with the acquisition of additional educa-
tion, not on superior performance. So how do teachers measure their own performance
and achieve recognition of a job well done? In many ways performance is measured
in gifts, verbal thanks, or an acquired reputation. These are all forms of giving that
come easy and naturally to affluent and educated parents. However, lower-income or
English-limited parents do not tend to be vocal with either praise or criticism. When
a teacher has a class with such students, the vocal or tangible recognition that
everyone needs to some extent in their job will be lacking.
Another part of professionalism is the establishing and maintaining of professional
boundaries when dealing with clients. Boundaries establish acceptable behaviour,
reflect the respect of the client to the professional, recognise the knowledge base of
the professional as distinct from the client, and recognise a separate identity when one
is in the professional position. Many teachers expressed dismay at the level of famil-
iarity shown to them by parents, a familiarity that disregards their professional status.
Affluent parents are more comfortable with educational processes, and with comfort
come a blurring of boundaries. A kindergarten teacher who lives in the same neigh-
bourhood where she teaches told of a child who was having trouble adjusting to a new
school situation at the beginning of the year. The parents handled the situation in a
unique manner:
The whole family came in the driveway, it was in the fall, and the child was having some
problems adjusting, so they thought it would be good for the child if they brought him
over to see my house. They brought me some vegetables from their garden.
While this may seem like a sweet way to deal with a child’s nervousness, it was an
imposition on the teacher’s personal time and space. No professional boundaries
existed for this teacher.
A second-grade teacher told of an incident she had with parents regarding the
school’s tendency to allow classroom teacher requests. This teacher was married three
years prior, and a group of mothers became concerned that she would get pregnant and
not be around to teach the younger siblings of her prior students. A group approached
her, stating that they had been discussing the issue, and asked whether she could plan

12 M. Landeros
to have her child at the end of the school year ensuring a minimum of missed class-
room days.
I was very offended – I can’t believe they had the audacity to even ask. I was even more
appalled that they were discussing it together. Do I have to explain my family-planning
agenda to these parents? In no other profession would a woman be approached by clients
with that concern.
This teacher expresses not only a breach of her professional boundaries by these
mothers, but also laments the lack of recognition to the professionalism of the entire
occupation.
A final insult expressed by teachers to their professionalism was the way the
influences of the entitled-minded mothers trickled down to their children’s behaviour.
A reading specialist in a school whose boundaries recently experienced a substantial
upward shift in socioeconomic status stated that the level of disrespect in her school
has increased, not only from the parents to the teachers, but also the students to the
teachers.
It is some of these parents who are more educated, who make more money, who do come
in and they demand the world for their kids. Those to me are the obnoxious parents; those
to me are the parents who teach their kids to be disrespectful.
Many teachers in this study expressed dismay at the increasing lack of respect on the
part of students, connecting it to the behaviour of parents. ‘The apple doesn’t fall far
from the tree – ever, ever, ever’ stated a first-grade teacher. As more and more parents
question the decisions of teachers – in terms of curriculum, discipline, teaching meth-
ods or styles, the more the students tend to feel free to also question authority. The
entire tone of the school becomes influenced by the behaviour of an initially small
group of entitled-minded parents.
Entitlement and the tone of the school
Teaching is an emotionally demanding job. It is not surprising that this study supports
prior research indicating that the most demanding and burdensome aspect of the teach-
ing profession is dealing with parents. Teachers rank the handling of parents as more
difficult than finding enough funding, maintaining discipline or enduring the toils of
testing (Gibbs 2005; Keyes 2002; Miretzky 2004). Demanding parents are certainly
not unique to the district studied. A teacher with 33 years of teaching experience stated:
Some parents are very demanding, wanting a lot of attention. It’s been 33 years for me,
I’ve worked in many different buildings, private schools, public schools, different
districts, different economic areas, and there’s some in every building.
Overall, parent–teacher relationships in this district were found to be very positive.
One teacher stated, ‘Ninety-nine per cent of parents are great’. However, while teach-
ers enjoyed positive relationships with the majority of parents, the small group of
‘entitled-minded’ mothers received the most discussion due to their consistent chal-
lenges to teacher professionalism.
A significant fact of this study is that the most demanding and burdensome aspect
of teaching is actually perpetuated by a small minority. A kindergarten teacher stated
how a small number of entitled-minded parents can devastate a teacher:

I think now days that more teachers quit teaching because of parents, and the demands
and the expectations that are placed on them, and the criticisms that come their way from
parents. You can be loved by 40 of your parents and four of them really have an issue, a
recurring issue, and taking it to levels far beyond where they should be taking it, you can
see why you need some protection from that criticism because it is really difficult. And
it is not children, children never bring me down. I walk into that classroom and the
children enrich me more than I would ever expect. But it is the parents that I go home in
tears over, because you are constantly under the microscope in terms of trying to meet
their demands, and some of their demands are just so unrealistic.
The only teacher claiming an absence of problems with parents was the lone male
teacher in the study. Even more interestingly, this teacher had the least amount of
experience, having taught for only three years. Contrary to the assessment of the
other teachers interviewed, that ‘new teachers are fair game’, the lone male teacher
stated:
I’ve seen some female teachers that just seem to have these stories of parents bombard-
ing them with e-mails, telling them this and telling them that. And I sit there and go, man,
I just don’t see that. I don’t get those types of comments. I don’t know, I don’t want to
say it is because I am a male, I really don’t, but it could be.
This was a very interesting comment, especially considering the general findings of
this study that years of experience do not bring immunity from parental impositions.
This male teacher was also unique in that he kept a very strict boundary between
himself and his parents. He mentioned that he purposely does not live in the district,
not wanting to mix his home life with his personal life. He also expressed the approval
felt by parents that their child had a male teacher, often times their first.
Teaching is a gender-segregated profession, particularly at the elementary level,
and it is obvious that gender plays a role in parent–teacher relationships. Educators are
professionals, yet their roles also require (or expect) a great deal of caring behaviour.
The male teacher in this study, while not embodying the traditionally feminine char-
acteristics expected of elementary teachers, was in fact highly valued as a professional
educator, seemingly free of the distress perpetuated by the entitled-minded mothers of
the district. The good mother appears to be pitted not against the professional teacher,
but against the professional female teacher.
The role of school leadership
Understanding the social conditions that enable entitled-minded mothers to work
toward and achieve individualistic goals for their children at the expense of the greater
good as well as teacher professionalism is the first step in tempering the effects of such
behaviour. While teachers in all 11 schools discussed difficulties concerning overly
demanding parents, heightened problems with parental demands and deteriorating
relationships were found to exist mainly at two individual schools. A kindergarten
teacher from one of these schools explained how a lack of strong leadership in
conjunction with influential entitled-minded parents can transform a school into
becoming parent-led:
Now they have more input through the e-mail and the administrator that honours every-
thing, so they are more vocal about it. Plus, I think word spreads too, if they find out that
somebody requested that, then why should they not do it as well?

14 M. Landeros
Strong leadership appears to be an important intervening factor in tempering the influ-
ence of entitled-minded parents.
At the two schools lacking strong leadership, the entitled-minded behaviour of a
minority expanded to the extent that new norms were established between parents and
teachers, leading one teacher to comment, ‘The parents rule the school’. She went on
to explain how the principal consistently acquiesces to demands of the more entitled-
minded parents, even when resulting in decisions not educationally best for the chil-
dren. One of the more popular demands was the requesting of specific classroom
teachers for one’s child; a demand that conflicts with placement chosen by teachers to
achieve an academically optimal mix of students. Success with this demand led to the
mushrooming of more diverse demands by even larger groups of parents. This created
a considerable amount of tension between parents and teachers, leading one teacher to
comment, ‘You can get eaten alive in here’. Such undermining of teacher decisions
reduces the professionalism of the teaching staff. The entire tone of the school
becomes influenced by the behaviour of an initially small group of entitled-minded
parents.
Entitled-minded mothers at these two schools place themselves above teachers on
the educational hierarchy. One such mother expresses her belief that parents are
directly responsible for holding teachers accountable for how they do their jobs by
stating, ‘As a parent and a taxpayer, we are paying their salary. Technically we have
some interest in what you do all day?’ Another mother discussed amazement that so
many parents were not more involved and vocal in the educational process. When
asked why, she stated ‘I think it is education, and it’s the fear of the whole parent
versus teacher. The teacher is the boss, well; you’re not the boss’. This mother finds
it imperative to be demanding and assertive in order to assure her rightful position in
the educational hierarchy, which no doubt differs from a teacher’s perspective.
Without strong leadership to contain parental demands, the educators lose control,
professionalism, and respect.
Conclusion
This study demonstrated the complexity of problems and issues occurring in the
parent–teacher relationship when parents are highly educated and affluent. Within the
competitive atmosphere of an affluent community, a child’s overt behaviour and
progress becomes a measure of good mothering – causing the energy put into a child’s
schooling to become more of an action on behalf of the parent rather than the child.
Educational participation becomes a means for publically establishing oneself as a
‘good mother’. Successful, entitled-minded women who have put their own careers on
hold to stay home with their children redefine motherhood using the tenants of capi-
talism. Professional motherhood becomes result oriented, individualistic and status
driven.
Women construct their identity as mothers amid contradictory and competing soci-
etal expectations. A stay-at-home mother may be devalued in a capitalistic society that
defines status in terms of earning power; however, in an affluent area this same mother
finds her status enhanced when she is able to avail her time and energy to enhancing
her child’s educational experience. Affluent, entitled-minded mothers employ self-
management strategies to enhance their own status and that of their child in order to
minimise the inherent risks of a capitalist economy. Without intervention by school
administration, such individualistic-oriented behaviour snowballs into altering the

power hierarchy of the school away from educators to the favour of parents. Reliance
on teachers as ‘experts’ was no longer a taken-for-granted aspect of the parent–teacher
relationship in schools where this occurred. The enhancing of individual ‘good
mother’ status came at the expense of the democratic ideals of education as well as
teacher professionalism.
In the past, a teaching career was one of the few legitimate professions open to
women. However, advanced education, equal opportunity legislation, and the increas-
ing number of women entering the labour force in all types of professions have
diminished the professional status of an elementary teaching career. The standing of
teachers is further impacted in an affluent area where many of the parents, while possi-
bly having equal or lower levels of educational attainment as their child’s teachers,
have training and experience in professions that nonetheless carry higher status value
from a capitalistic perspective. When entitled-minded mothers use school participa-
tion as a means to gain status as ‘good mothers’, they in turn further diminish the
predominately female profession of elementary education.
The taken-for-granted availability of women to invest time in schooling creates
significant inequalities between districts in terms of the level at which schools operate
and the conditions under which teachers perform their jobs (Griffith and Smith 2005).
This study shows how inequality can be further produced at a more individualistic
level, with differences of involvement between mothers in the same school. Attempts
to redefine good mothering in a post-feminist, neoliberal capitalist economy compels
women into actions that enhance their own status at the expense of teacher profession-
alism and the democratic ideals of education.
Struggles for status camouflage real issues – the traditional division of labour
which assumes elementary education is an occupation requiring the feminine trait of
caring more so than professional training, the ambiguous feelings toward working
mothers in society, the relationships of power surrounding the definitions of mother-
hood, and the supposed dichotomy of the public and the private sphere – as well as
any dialogue toward finding a solution. This issue will only become more pronounced
within the current restrictive financial climate resulting in reduced funding for educa-
tion. Schools will be required to depend more and more on parental involvement to
make up for budget shortfalls. A neoliberal economy places more responsibility on the
role of parents in providing a quality education for their children, making the role of
mother as the status producer of the family even more imperative and pronounced.
Parent–teacher relationships are primarily relationships among women. Additional
research into school leadership and the constructing of gendered status relationships
within the atmosphere of capitalism would be beneficial. In particular, further research
into the experiences of male elementary teachers is also needed in order to shed
greater understanding on this subject.
The findings of this qualitative study are not generalisable to all educational
relationships or all settings because the data were derived from a small population of
parents and teachers. However, the consistent replies from teachers about their deal-
ings with parents who were overly involved in their child’s education, the consistent
replies of how such behaviour on the part of parents influences their ability to teach
effectively, and finally how such behaviour can snowball into creating an atmosphere
that is not always educationally sound cannot be set aside as unique to the schools
examined. This study shows that on a micro-level, the gendered structure of a capital-
istic society permeates even the relationships that parents and teachers construct in
relation to the child that they hold in common.

16 M. Landeros
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