Over one third of respondents said their parents were not high school graduates.
A greater number of fathers had achieved a college diploma or higher education.
Half of the respondents said their parents expected them to achieve a high school
diploma and another nine said their parents expected a university degree. One
person said, "My parents had low expectations but they were a different
type of parent and weren’t as involved as parents are now."
Most interviewees said they saw their parents reading the newspaper frequently and 14 said they saw their parents reading other material. Six people remembered their parents reading to them regularly and another six said their parents read to them sporadically.
Eight respondents grew up in towns that did not have a public library. Nine people said they had public library cards and used them regularly or infrequently. Five others said they accessed books from their school library.
Most respondents said they saw their parents paying bills and taxes and writing letters. Three mothers wrote in journals.
Thirteen people remembered singing and rhyming at home while they were growing up. Seven respondents said both parents or the whole family would sing at church weekly.
News programs were the most frequently watched television shows, followed by sports (mostly watched by fathers), Disney and comedy shows.
Ten respondents said they did not go on cultural and social outings while 12 others said they went on factory tours or to the beach.
These results show that even with the emphasis on the work ethic, the respondents’ parents engaged in family literacy practices such as reading to their children and other positive reading, writing and numeracy modeling behavior.