Childhood
Past and Present
By Jeffrey
M. Bowen
Is childhood a developmental stage in life,
or a social or cultural construct, a biological or psychological phenomenon, or
mostly a bunch of conflicting ideas about the impacts of economics, laws, and learning
environments? All
of these categories influence our thinking, and the facets change over time,
making it hard to pin down lasting conclusions.
Childhood usually refers to the time after
infancy (one or two years old) and before we turn 13 and become teenagers. Adulthood is legally reached at age 18. In between is
a transitional stage called adolescence, beginning with the onset of puberty.
We pay
special attention to institutional boundaries for childhood, yet those lines
often blur given individual physical and psychological changes, and most
definitely in context with our personal memories of childhood.
As a
father, a professional educator, and amateur historian, I have spent years
trying to figure out childhood. Comparisons usually
help, so I was intrigued by a recent scholarly blog that posed the question: Is
childhood today essentially different from childhood in 1890?
More
than a century ago, waves of immigration rivaled the ethnic diversity we
experience today. Ethnic variations among children were overridden by the
priority of educating for basic literacy. Economic stress and larger families
meant that children were expected to take on either employment or home tasks to
support their families. Especially in urban factories, harsh conditions for
child labor often prevailed. Religious beliefs reinforced the assumption that
children were ignorant and in need of direct adult instruction. Strict
behavioral rules and physical punishments were the norm at home and school.
Do the
changes that have occurred in our conceptions of childhood over the last 130
years make the life of a child essentially different? Biologically, children are much the
same. However, our societal views of
childhood have changed dramatically.
No
longer are children considered lynchpins of employability. Yet they wield powerful purchasing power, and
so do parents on their behalf. But their
contributions are more about what they spend, not what they earn. The systems
that protect or nurture children have proliferated and diversified --
medically, legally, educationally, socially, and technologically, to name just
a few of the categories. We have truly
complexified childhood by dividing it into more and more developmental stages.
Among the bigger influences on children in
the last two centuries has been change in the family structure. As divorces and single parenting have
transformed living and working arrangements, the conditions for childhood have
been redefined psychologically and socially.
The time and opportunity for children to use screen time and
electronically access data and information has invited children into the world
of adulthood sooner than ever before.
Small wonder that children feel more like adults. They embrace ideas and opinions once-upon-a-time
reserved or hidden from them. At the
same time, the continuity of youthful learning from the internet can be
confusing and superficial.
School-going has maintained many logistical
features that would have been found in classrooms of the 1890s. School attendance is still compulsory through
age 16. Yet changes are revealing.
Children now experience education in ways that prolong their studies,
diversify their academic subject matter and engagement, and recognize or reward
them differently. For instance,
standardized testing was virtually unknown at the end of the 19th
century. Immigration has stimulated
intercultural exposure for children, and so too has the availability of shared
technology and the convenience of travel.
The legal protection and guarantees provided to children who have
handicapping conditions has been transformational, particularly in the U.S. Our
educational systems have created categories of diagnosis and treatment that
were virtually unknown even 50 years ago.
Events
of the last few decades have focused intently on the social and emotional
wellbeing of children. The recent
pandemic has rearranged more than the physical accommodations for children at
home or in school. It has intensified
concerns about the way they feel about themselves and how they connect with
others, including parents, teachers, and peers.
At the extremes we encounter disastrous dysfunctions that may wreak
havoc on the lives of school attendees.
This includes self-destructive tendencies, including use of drugs and
widespread medical interventions.
Here in the 21st century we are struggling
with a difficult combination of contradictions regarding childhood. We want children to develop a work ethic, and
to have authentic hands-on employment experiences, to be motivated and informed
about the career and technical world they will soon enter. Yet we find it
difficult to give them meaningful opportunities to engage in the world of work
and careers; entry is typically superficial or at least confusingly divided
between vocational and academic opportunities.
We want children to become knowledgeable
about the world around them, so we try to make their formal learning
systematic, staged, and age appropriate. Unfortunately, commercial advertising
and internet providers thwart our purpose. Availability of shockingly explicit
and misleading information is difficult for adults, including parents and
teachers to control more than minimally. We don’t want children to mature so
fast, but they do anyway, unevenly given our demographic diversity as a nation,
among our states, and based on dramatic disparities in wealth.
Still and all, on many fronts we have
experienced outstanding progress toward improving the experiences of childhood.
Our rates of infant and child mortality have declined steeply. We are better
than ever before at controlling and diminishing childhood disease. We provide
extensive protections and opportunities for children with disabilities and
chronic disease.
In ways that sometimes surprise us, many children
resist parts of growing up, or maturing into self-responsibility. Consider the sizable proportion of children
who want the convenience and assurance of continuing to live at home. There is something deeply stressful and
economically prohibitive about the whole experience of maturing to adulthood,
but many children and their parents genuinely want to preserve their innocence
and let them remain child-like as long as possible. The hard knocks of childhood in the 1890s are
largely gone, but we have substituted calibrated insulation and legal
entitlements that may undermine or delay preparing for adult life.
When the conveniences and living conditions
of today are compared with the 1890s, there is no doubt that childhood is
nowadays a time of great enjoyment and fun, with plenty of free time and widely
available means to explore and discover.
Of
course, the prevalence of poverty and unevenness of adult guidance stands in
the way of such enjoyment. Risk and issues of safety are sometimes threatening.
Simply coping with the challenges of procedurally complex bureaucracy can make
getting things done very frustrating.
However, increasingly we are recognizing the
importance of adult guidance via neighborhoods, school outreach, community
links, and mentoring. We also have
gained a greater appreciation of ways to enable children to experience learning
through real or authentic projects that can produce lasting results. Children learn best when they discover,
invent, engage their curiosity, and feel they play a meaningful role to helping
others and themselves. Therein lies our hope for the children of this century
and the next.
