Childhood Past and Present

 

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 19^th 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.