Childhood

• Positive childhood - Aries and Shorter (March of progress)

  • Children are more valued, better protected and have greater rights
  • Reasons include higher living standards, smaller family sizes and new laws
  • Counter – Hillman found that boys have more liberties and Bonke found that girls do more domestic labour
• Positive childhood - child centred families

  • At the centre of decision making.
  • Parents spend more time with them.
  • Family life revolves around them.
• Positive childhood - finically investing

  • £230,000 until 21 due to longer time spent in education.
  • Have greater opportunities than before.
  • Parents may sacrifice their own needs.
• Negative childhood - Gittens and age patriarchy

  • Increasing adult dominance and child dependency.
  • Parents have more control over children's time, space and bodies.
• Negative childhood - Furedi and paranoid parenting

  • Culture of fear in parenting means children are monitored and supervised more closely
  • Means a lack of freedom.
• Negative childhood - Brannen and loneliness

  • Smaller family sizes + higher divorce rates + longer working hours = increased loneliness for children
• Negative childhood - Palmer and toxicity

  • Children are poisoned by junk culture like media, junk food and technology.
  • This harms development.
• Negative childhood - Postman and disappearing

  • TV/media leads to children losing innocence, committing adult crimes and dressing like adults
  • Counter – Opie studied children’s unsupervised games, rhymes and songs and found the continued existence of a separate children’s culture
• Improved childhood - Changes in childhood over time (Pilcher)

  • Middle Ages - children seen as little adults so they were treated the same
  • Today - seen as 'separate' and as needing protection, seen as a golden age
  • Counter – Firestone says protection from adult paid work is a form of inequality, as it segregates them and removes their independence