OUTSIDERS by Howard S. Becker

Author:Howard S. Becker
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: THE FREE PRESS
Published: 1963-06-13T16:00:00+00:00

Parents and Wives

I have noted that musicians extend their desire for freedom from outside interference in their work to a generalized feeling that they should not be bound by the ordinary conventions of their society. The ethos of the profession fosters an admiration for spontaneous and individualistic behavior and a disregard for the rules of society in general. We may expect that members of an occupation with such an ethos will have problems of conflict when they come into close contact with that society. One point of contact is on the job, where the audience is the source of trouble. The effect of this area of problems on the career has been described above.

Another area of contact between profession and society is the family. Membership in families binds the musician to people who are squares, outsiders who abide by social conventions whose authority the musician does not acknowledge. Such relationships bear seeds of conflict which can break out with disastrous consequences for the career and/or the family tie. This section will spell out the nature of these conflicts and their effect on the career.

The individual’s family has a great influence on his occupational choice through its power to sponsor and aid the neophyte in his chosen career. Hall, in his discussion of the early stages of the medical career, notes that:

In most cases family or friends played a significant role by envisaging the career line and reinforcing the efforts of the recruit. They accomplished the latter by giving encouragement, helping establish the appropriate routines, arranging the necessary privacy, discouraging anomalous behavior, and defining the day-to-day rewards.7

The musician’s parents ordinarily do not aid the development of his career in this way. On the contrary, as one man observed, “My God, most guys have had a terrific hassle with their parents about going into the music business.” The reason is clear: regardless of the social class from which he comes, it is usually obvious to the prospective musician’s family that he is entering a profession which encourages his breaking with the conventional behavior patterns of his family’s social milieu. Lower-class families seem to have been most distressed over the irregularity of musical employment, although there is evidence that some families encouraged such a career, seeing it as a possible mobility route. In the middle-class family, choice of dance music as an occupation is viewed as a movement into Bohemianism, involving a possible loss of prestige for both individual and family, and is vigorously opposed. Considerable pressure is applied to the person to give up his choice: You know, everybody thought it was pretty terrible when I decided to be a musician. … I remember I graduated from high school on a Thursday and left town on Monday for a job. Here my parents were arguing with me and all my relatives, too, they were really giving me a hard time…. This one uncle of mine came on so strong about how it wasn’t a regular life and how could I ever get married and all that stuff.

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