Centuries of Childhood
Philippe Aries (1960)
In medieval society the idea of childhood did not exist. The awareness of the particular nature of childhood, that distinguishes the child from the adult, was lacking. As soon as the child could live without constant care, as soon as he was weaned, he belonged to adult society. This extended to every sort of social activity; games, crafts, arms and sex. There was no concept of “not in front of the children”.
Medieval society knew nothing of modern education. Nowadays our society depends on the success of its education system. It has a concept of education and an awareness of its importance. New sciences such as psychology and paediatrics devote themselves to problems of childhood. Out world is obsessed by the physical, moral and sexual problems of childhood. This preoccupation was unknown to medieval society, because there was no problem. As soon as feasible, the child became the natural companion of the adult. There was no separation between the worlds of children and adults.
Toys first appeared in Britain in large numbers during the latter half of the nineteenth century. The first clockwork trains, for example, were made in 1865, and construction sets, teddy bears and toy soldiers all go back to the turn of the century.
Recently the American writer Tom Engelhardt has launched an attack on the commercialisation of children’s toys in America. US toy companies produce programme-length commercials and American children have been deluged with Care Bears, Smurfs, Gummi Bears, He Men Masters of the Universe, and hundreds of other little creatures, which enter the home as cartoon characters on TV but which are all available in toy form. The more successful of these creatures feature in huge merchandising webs which incorporate product licensing, movie appearances and new technology, such as video games.
Toys, in Engelhardt’s view, can no longer be seen in isolation, but as part of a massive commercialised assault on children’s minds and emotions.
The History of Childhood
By Patricia S. Kruppa
Patricia S. Kruppa, an Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin, designed a course on "Children and History." 1985
Throughout history children have been abused, battered, and abandoned. The record is so dismal that the history of childhood becomes "a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken," writes psychoanalyst Lloyd de Mause. "The further back in history one goes, the lower the level of child care, the more likely children are to be killed, abandoned, beaten, terrorized, and sexually abused." Infanticide was a regular practice in antiquity and only recognized as murder in 374 A.D. The practice continued throughout the Middle Ages and into modern times. Even in aristocratic families children were neglected and abused through much of human history. Swaddled in infancy, abandoned to wet-nurses, reared by tutors who regarded regular beating as a salutary mode of instruction--the childhood experiences of even the privileged classes resemble existence in Hobbes' state-of-nature, a place where life was "short, brutish, and nasty."
Until the 18th century, about 80 percent of all children would probably be classified as "battered children." In amassing his psychohistories, Lloyd de Mause has found not one life of a child dating from before 1690 in which the child had not been beaten. Spare-the-rod-and-spoil-the-child was a prescription taken seriously by parents, teachers, and caretakers. A child who was not beaten would be idle or vain, a likely candidate for the devil's tutelage. John Wesley, who believed "idle hands are the devil's workshop," also thought that "play is unbecoming in a Christian child," a conviction which happily dovetailed with the needs of the industrialists of his day for the dexterous fingers of child spinners.
The History of Childhood
By Patricia S. Kruppa
Patricia S. Kruppa, an Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin, designed a course on "Children and History." 1985
What can only strike a modern observer as utter callousness toward children was probably a result of the psychic "numbing" produced by the horrifying facts of child mortality. While there are few accurate statistics for child mortality in the preindustrial world, there is evidence that as many as 30 percent of all children died before they were 14 days old. Few families survived intact. All parents expected to bury some of their children and they found it difficult to invest emotionally in such a tenuous existence as a newborn child. When the loss of a child was commonplace, parents protected themselves from the emotional consequences of the death by refusing to make an emotional commitment to the infant. How else can we explain mothers who call the infant "it," or leave dying babies in gutters, or mention the death of a child in the same paragraph with a reference to pickles? Even educated parents routinely forgot the names, numbers, and ages of their offspring, and it was common practice to name a newborn child with the name of a deceased sibling. The name was the thing, not the child. There was no sense that each child was a unique being, with a unique identity, symbolized by a name which was given to that child alone.
In order for parents to perceive children as unique beings, the parent had to see the child as a potential adult. The parent had to believe that the baby would live. The parent also had to believe that the child could be shaped, that the child was not inherently evil, but capable of growth, and responsive to nurture. When this transformation took place, the child was "discovered," and childhood began to be seen as a distinct period in human development.
United Nations Report
"In 1999 were born some 129 million children all over the world; 11 million of them died before they were five years old, because of events that could easily have been helped." This is a quotation from "The plight of infancy in the World", a report of UNICEF that was presented to the public in Rome.
The principal death causes in 1998 were: lack of cures, infections of the respiratory tract, intestinal troubles and malaria, all of them diseases that could have been prevented with vaccines.
Things aren't getting any better: 20 million children are evacuated in the course of military conflicts, 177 million toddlers suffer from growth retardation mainly due to malnutrition of their mothers during pregnancy and about 500 million live with less than 1 dollar a day. The extent of this tragedy is so big that we cannot imagine its magnitude, even if we try to envisage 140 soccer stadiums full of small (and unique) human lives that could have been saved.
Children's exploitation is quite common in poor countries. In Third World nations, youngsters are generally obliged to toil since their earliest years. Their work consists of:
· sewing balls, carpets, and dresses;
· breaking stones in mines;
· operating as soldiers;
· doing lots of activities unsuitable for them
Boys and girls work 10 to 12 hours a day and are controlled by "masters" who beat them if they do not produce enough. Many nations have launched campaigns against this plague.
Here are the words of some former working children who are now free:
Peru: STONEBREAKERS AND MINERS
PEDRO IS 10 YEARS OLD AND HAD BEEN WORKING 10 HOURS A DAY IN A QUARRY SINCE LAST YEAR.
"Nearly all of us are children knapping with a hammer and a pickaxe. In the barrio we passed the word about this work. In the morning we come up in groups and ride on the bus for an hour, then we walk the rest of the way. Every now and then, a truck gives us a lift. I don't like this drudgery; sometimes it's so tiring I feel as if I was dying. But what else could I do? I didn't even finish the second school year. We are poor and we need money. I only hope I won't hurt myself: accidents are very frequent. Anyway, it's better here than in the mine."
Pakistan: WHOLE DAYS SPENT SEWING FOOTBALLS
LATIF IS 11 YEARS OLD AND HAD SEWN FOOTBALLS SINCE HE WAS 7.
"I think it's forbidden to employ children, but in this area kids are all working. I started helping a relative of mine, now I work for hire 9-10 hours a day sewing balls by hand. It's always the same grind, it wears my fingers out and I never learn anything new. The balls are of different makes; their brand names are famous all over the world. I'm not keen on soccer, I prefer cricket. But then, who's got the time to play?"
Human Rights Watch Documents 2003
Street Children
Street children throughout the world are subjected to physical abuse by police or have been murdered outright, as governments treat them as a blight to be eradicated-rather than as children to be nurtured and protected. They are frequently detained arbitrarily by police simply because they are homeless, or criminally charged with vague offences such as loitering, vagrancy, or petty theft. They are tortured or beaten by police and often held for long periods in poor conditions. Girls are sometimes sexually abused, coerced into sexual acts, or raped by police. Street children also make up a large proportion of the children who enter criminal justice systems and are committed finally to correctional institutions (prisons) that are euphemistically called schools, often without due process. Few advocates speak up for these children, and few street children have family members or concerned individuals willing and able to intervene on their behalf. With the exception of the massive killings of street children in Brazil and Colombia, very little attention has been paid to the constant police violence and abuse from which many children suffer.
The term street children refers to children for whom the street more than their family has become their real home. It includes children who might not necessarily be homeless or without families, but who live in situations where there is no protection, supervision, or direction from responsible adults.