[acb-hsp] The Rise and Fall of the American Childhood

[peter altschul]

The Rise and Fall of the American Childhood
  Colin Greer, Alterationet July 19, 2012
  From the 1930's to 1980, childhood in America became a 
cherished space for youngsters to grow in.  After 1980, and with 
increasing furor, that space has been under assault and childhood 
terribly compromised.  Look at what we once did and what we're 
now doing.
  ininThe Riseccinin
  1.  Child labor laws.
  2.  Civil rights protections for all children.
  3.  Full and secure employment for parents.
  4.  Play as a mode of learning.  Early childhood as a time to 
invest in child development through stimulating play.
  5.  Contraception and the Pill allowed women choice and 
children to feel chosen.
  6.  Feminism brought fatherhood back home and encouraged men to 
be robust partners in parenting.
  7.  Protection from adult violence including corporal 
punishment and child abuse; the establishment of family and 
children's courts, and special sentencing for minors.
  8.  Access to quality education on an unprecedented scale 
stimulated by competition with the Russians and influenced by 
deep psychology.  The US moved toward universal inclusion from 
elementary through post-secondary education.
  Yet once these gains were fully established in the top rungs of 
society, they began to shut down for the nation's children as a 
whole.  For 50 years, the pendulum swung toward protecting 
children and guaranteeing a childhood for all; then it began to 
swing back when less than half of the population had securely 
achieved these benefits.  So despite the language of "going too 
far" in the direction of a protective, even a "nanny state," we 
have never in fact gone far enough for the least privileged of 
us.
  ininThe Fallccinin
  1.  Schools, once protected from the workplace, have been 
turned into a workplace of rigid rules, intense competition and 
permanent stress.  Even privileged children are educated in the 
fortress school mentality set in motion by Ronald Reagan's 
"Nation at Risk" report and George Bush's No Child Left Behind 
act.  The pressure cooker of privileged schooling sets in motion 
a competitiveness, pitting kids against each other, and 
ironically, producing insecurity and trauma in the lives of rich 
kids, too.
  2.  Play is diminished in importance and recreational activity 
in the school setting has become a privileged enrichment benefit 
in private schools.
  3.  Unemployment and welfare reform have made family life 
insecure with its greatest impact on the lowest 40% of income 
earners.
  4.  Child consumption has skyrocketed as an advertising target, 
with violence all too often the trigger to this consumption.  And 
despite our public recoil at child molestation, our media 
continue to sexualize children, especially girls.
  5.  Failure to protect children from adult assault has become a 
commonplace discovery in such basic institutions as the Church 
and sports.  In born-again settings, corporal punishment is on 
the rise, according both to victims and the sale of popular books 
lauding it as a method of discipline.  And of course, profiling 
in immigrant and poor communities has made vulnerable children 
even more so.
  6.  Children in poor and immigrant communities are actually 
working -- on the land and in sweatshops -- despite our laws to 
the contrary.  Children in this population have less than a 10% 
chance of a college education.  Hunger and homelessness among 
these children is at shockingly high levels.
  7.  Challenges to contraception have reached national 
credibility, with no regard to the memory of unwanted and maimed 
children resulting from aborted abortions.
  8.  The extension of the age of culpability for criminal 
behavior and the use of adult courts for teenage offenders is 
adding to the pain of children in parts of the socio-economy 
where the incarceration of parents is disproportionately high.
  9.  The need for both parents to work in the face of not only 
economic downturns, but the demand for higher productivity from 
American workers and lower public benefits, puts the lives of 
children under stresses that we once aimed to eradicate.
  In describing both the rise and fall of American childhood, 
I've quoted no data for two reasons.  One, it is all out there.  
It's in the press and in the professional literature for all to 
find.  Two, the gathering of data seems to make no difference to 
public behavior and public policy.
  Perhaps it's time instead for each of us to imagine just one 
child, one who looks like a child you know and love.  Each of 
these children is the bearer of the accumulated loss summarized 
in the Rise and Fall.
  Colin Greer is president of the New World Foundation
  in New York.  Among his books is A Call to Character 
(HarperCollins, 1995).
  ininB plus Alterationet Mobile Edition