Parents' cultural belief systems have definite consequences for children's development. Parents are the main agents of socialization for their children during the period of their lives when they are most susceptible to influence. Because culture is a pervasive aspect of parental personality, cultural belief systems play a major role in the socialization process.
Culture is the shared meanings that people in a society give to important life events. These events include birth, death, commerce, mating, protection from hunger and bad weather, etc. Thus every aspect of human life and behavior is influenced by culture: "In a sense, to understand culture is to understand learned behavior" (Slonim, 1991, p. 5). Moreover, specific cultural value systems are transmitted from one generation to another.
Sigel and Kim (1996) describe a cultural common sense that adults develop, in terms of childrearing, religion, politics, etc. These ethnotheories and beliefs guide the parent and become part of the worldview that is passed along to children. Research by Harkness et al. (1996) confirms that, for middle class parents, the family pediatrician is an important source of root metaphors and cultural models of child development.
The means which parents use to transmit their cultural belief systems to their children are many and varied. Parents use teaching behaviors (actions and activities) that include reading books, exerting control over television viewing, and engaging in conversations (Sigel and Kim, 1996, p. 89). Although parents' cultural belief systems are not the sole determinants of personality development in children (e.g., heredity and environment play important roles), culture does exert a major impact on children's learned behaviors.
The influence that parents exert over their offspring does not end with childhood. It continues throughout adolescence and even into adulthood. As Maccoby (1992) notes, "At every sta...