YC100: Lecture 1 – Sept.

13, 2022
Histories of Childhood

Chapter 1
- The concepts of child and childhood are social constructs
o social creations subject to redefinition by the society or culture that attempts to
define them

- there is little consensus in how child, children, and childhood are defined
o Statistic Canada’s definition of children: offspring of any age residing with their
parents (or grandparents) with a qualification: the offspring’s children or their
spouse or partner cannot be living in their (parental) home.
 Has to do with the nature of the living arrangement
 Adulthood begins with moving out of your parent’s home and/or living
with a partner and/or you own child

o Criminal Code of Canada: a child is anyone under the chronological age of 16

 S.150.1, 151, 152 protect anyone under the age of 16 from any sexual
exploitation and consent
 Reflects political rather than physiological motivations for how child is
defined
 S.163.1 protects anyone under the age of 18 from child pornography
(written, audio, or visual)

- Many of current definition of child have to do with parenteral rights and obligations
towards their children.
o Government of Canada websites state parents must take care of their children
until the age of 16
o Ontario Child, Youth and Family Services, state parents must take care of their
children until the age of 18
 Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec, and Prince Edward Island – all
18 years
 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the child aims to protect those
under 18
o British Columbia, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador,
Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut – 19 years old

- The term child varies depending on the context in which it is used, the purpose it is
intended to serve, and the type and nature of interactions it involves.

- What child means varies based on chronological age and level of maturity (in reference to
physical maturation or economic dependency) and according to political interests.

- Childhood is socially constructed, and the experiences, behaviours, and expectations

attached to this life period come to be seen as characteristic of childhood in ways that
also vary over time and across cultures.
 - Childhood had taken distinct forms depending on economic organization of the society
(hunting and gathering, agricultural, or industrial), the socioeconomic class and the social
status of the families, and the historical period (classical, postclassical, premodern,
modern).

Different historical methods of studying childhood:

- Hass, Lee, and Kimbrough: childhood experiences within time, along class, family stays,
and gender lines
- Stearns: world history approach – try to capture the big picture by studying to major
changes and continuities in childhood.

- What we know about children is filtered through the images, experiences, and ideas of
adults
o Why? Most children were silent, or silenced by history and circumstances
o In Centuries of Childhood, Philippe Ariès argued until medieval times, societies
did not recognize childhood as a distinct period in the life course
 People lacked awareness of the difference between childhood apart from
adulthood
 Phillipe Aries is a controversial French scholar and demographic
historian
- In history so many scholars have several different opinions on the Middle Ages and the
Medieval times regarding childhood

- John Locke: children have needs and interest different from those of adults, thus they
require special attention and a proper upbringing.
o Children are born free of reason
o With proper education, children were brough gradually to reason
o Childhood was an imperfect state of education built upon the blank slate
o Parents have rule and jurisdiction of the children when they come into the world

- Rousseau: children had their own way of seeing, thinking, and feeling part from adults,
and they had their own form of sensitive reason
o We should reason with children, and they should leave alone to be children –
since they have their own way of seeing, thinking, and feeling apart from adults;
they should be to explore and enjoy
o Philosophy of education is built on their natural stages of development for
different periods:
 infancy (birth – 2); childhood (2-12); boyhood or preadolescence (12-15);
adolescence or youth (15-20, or the age of marriage); manhood (20, or
marriage and beyond)
o childhood was carefree and special, and education took away from a child’s
freedom and humanity
o children are not born “blank” but instead carefree and innocent
o childhood is a time of innocence and honesty
 contrast to Locke’s view of childhood is an “imperfect state”
 - in Europe there was no unified view on what childhood was or how it should be treated

Locke vs Rousseau

Rousseau contended that children were inherently innocent (not sinful, as Hobbes believed),
weak, and easily tempted. He believed that humans were born pure until one's interactions with
the environment caused negative effects on one's development

Locke discovered the child. “Children are strangers to all we are acquainted with; and all the
things they meet with, are at first unknown to them, as they once were to us.” They are naturally
curious.

Historian Views:
Kojima: culture, nature, and economic organization of any given society shape how childhood is
measured, understood, and experienced

Stearns: studied a world history approach. – nomadic groups: too many children slowed the
group and acted as economic liabilities rather than an asset in foraging (hunting and gathering)
economies. – Birth rates slow down.

Stearns: children of different ages quickly become an essential about force, birth rates begin to
grow. In agrarian societies, it was important that children be protected and kept well enough to
work

Pollard: there were economic benefits to alliances with Indigenous families through marriage to
their daughters and through their granddaughters, who straddled two cultures.

The notion of childhood has oscillated (swung back and forth)

- It has taken on a more significant and discernible or less significant and indiscernible
place within the life cycle depending on the economic, political, and cultural composition
of any given group at any point in time.
- Conceptions of childhood have also varied along social class and gender lines, among
other variables.

Summary
- Since the beginning of historical studies of childhood many debates have surrounded the
definition of childhood, its geographical origins, and its starting point.
- In Canada the definition of child varies across institutions and jurisdiction
- Currently there is an ongoing challenge in our definition of child as it applies to child
soldiers
- Aries, attempted to describe what life was like for children at different points in time
- Locke and Rousseau tried to shape and change parents’ and educators’’ understanding of
their roles with children
 - Europeans in the 17th and 18th century did not invent the notion of childhood and child
protection
o Early civilization, thousands of years before that period in Western though,
distinguished childhood in some their codes and practices

Lecture Notes
History of Childhood
- Childhood is a time in one’s life that has a distinct beginning and end
- The concept of childhood differs
o Across cultures
o Across time
o Across institutions
- Concept of childhood is a social construct
o Defined by society or culture
- Many different definitions of children/childhood

Defining Children and Childhood Today

- No consensus with the definition of child/children/childhood, even in Canada
- Statistics Canada: Offspring of any age residing with their parents
- Criminal code of Canada: Anyone under the age of 16 from sexual exploitation

- Criminal Code: 14 to 16 even through age at puberty declines

- “This obviously reflects political rather than physiological motivation for how child is
defined”
- Frontal Cortex: Social appropriateness, judgment, memory, consequences, etc.
o Doesn’t fully develop until 25 years old

- Many definitions must for with parental rights and obligations

o How old does the child have to be to be able to take care of themselves?
o There are differences within Canada depending on the agency or source (i.e.,
Government of Canada website, Youth and Family services act)
o Child and Family Services fall under provincial jurisdiction, so it varies across
provinces

- Western cultures definition of Child relates largely to:

o Ability: is the child able to take care of themselves.
o Power: is the child able to hold their opinion in a strong way and maintain power.
Hold their own, stay strong
o Autonomy: dependence, how is the child able to take of themselves from an
independent perspective.
o Dependency: can a child be a dependent citizen in society. Can society depend on
them. Do they have a career where their employees and boss can depend on them.
Temporal Changes in Childhood (childhood changes across time)
The general period in history has an overarching impact on the definition
- Classical – 8th century BC to 6th century AD
- Post Classical 6th century to 14th century
o Little to know definition on children/childhood

- Premodern – 14th century to 18th century

o Postulations have been made around this time

- Modern 19th century +

o This is where we know most from
o Kids don’t leave a lot behind its mostly adults and that’s why it remains difficult
to figure out the true meaning of childhood/children

- The term childhood varies depending on a variety of factors:

o Economic organization
o Social class: childhood experiences are very different depending on the child’s
social class
o Gender
- Age of enlightenment: period of sanctuary before hardships

- Research conducted on specific periods of time

o don’t capture a broad range of experiences of children
o different classes/locations
- Research from a world history approach
o Based on major world events (ex. war, natural disasters)
o Too many generalizations
o Western approach
- Historical study of childhood is inaccurate

- History is reconstructed through analysis of documents

o Personal documents (letters, diaries)
o Official documents (birth records, corner reports)
o Children leave behind few direct records
 Lead to most records coming from an adult’s perspective

- History of childhood has largely been crafted by adults – their memories, perceptions,
and empierces
- Some documents were written by adults about their childhood, but this may also be
problematic
o Distorted experiences
o Memory bias: impairs or enhances recall by altering content
o Impact of trauma
“Discovery of Childhood”
- Phillipe Aires took a stance that childhood has no place in the medieval world (<13 th
century)
o Not neglected, but treated as tiny adults, children are not infantile
o Children did not have anything that made them unique and distinctly childlike
o There was no unique child emotional growth, they just emerged with adult
emotions
- Based on art, childhood emerged around the 13th century
o End of 16th/17th century the discovery of childhood: Philippe Aries from his
perspective

- Theories were examined by other scholars

o Some disputed due to overemphasizing/misinterpreting
o Others supported via their own analyses

At any given point in time one can find competing themes in the treatment and understanding of
childhood.

John Locke (1632-1704)

Father of English liberalism, French philosopher
- Different viewpoints to consider
- Locke believed children were not born in a state of equality
o Parents responsibility to rule over them when they come into the world
o Parents can raise their children as they please to raise them ‘perfectly’
 Physical punishments were common from parents
- “Imperfect state of childhood”
- Children are born in a state of sin
- Believed they were incomplete versions of their adult future selves

- Notion of a Blank Slate – free from reason, children don’t have rational thought
o Believed that experiences and knowledge acquired through education shaped
children into rational adults
o Children don’t have any intelligence/rationality and advised the parents to really
shape their children into good, rational people
- Cautioned against beating children into conformity

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

- French philosopher, writer, and composer
- Believed children were born carefree and innocent and not of sin
o Childhood as a time of innocence and honesty
o Had their own way of thinking, seeing, and feeling
o Do not reason as adults do
o Need space to explore the world
Stages of Development
- Infancy (0-2 years)
- Childhood (2-12 years)
- Pre-adolescence (12-15 years)
- Adolescence (15-20 years)
- Manhood (20+ years, or marriage and beyond)

Locke and Rosseau

- Both perspectives are very different from one another and there is no middle ground
- Locke: looking through a parent’s perspective
- Rosseau: looking through a child’s perspective
- Both shook things up on what childhood is
- Putting the responsibility on parents and educators to rear and nurture children
- Emphasized childhood was different than adulthood
- Perspectives shaped ideas about childhood moving forward

Children across cultures

- cultures and economic organization of society shape how childhoods are measured and
experienced
o E.g., older Japanese aging systems, newborn = 1 year old

- In hunter/gatherer societies birth rate was kept low

o Too many children slowed the group
o Presented economic liabilities (more children to feed but they don’t even do any
work)
o Engaged in ways to regulate number of children
 Birth control
 Refrained from having sex
 If pregnancy happened, they would attempt an abortion

- In agricultural societies birth rate was higher

o Children became part of labour force
o Because there were more children, they gained more rights in the legal
system/seemed like distinct group
o In areas where there were more children, there were more superstitions – keep
them free of evil
- Important not to overgeneralize as differences emerge based on economic/political
circumstances

The concept of childhood has not remained stable thorough history, it has changed over time
and space. It depends on so many factors.
- Childhood hasn’t existed
- Childhood has existed
Intersection of Diverse Systems

Time

National
Cultural
origin

Childhood

Sexual
Gender
orientation

Social class

Child Solders
- National and international humanitarian and human rights issue
o Organizations: human rights watch; save the children; red cross; etc.
o BUT what is a child?
- In Canada, those between 12-18 can enroll in sea, army, or air cadets (is this
recruitment?)
o Their advertisements are very enticing and convincing for children to join the
military
o Are they getting brainwashed or manipulated to become a solider?
o Families w lower income who can’t afford to put their kids in school or extra
curriculars are more convinced to put their children in the military since it doesn’t
cost them anything
- Eligibility for armed forces is below the age of 18 with parental consent

- Staright-18 position seeks to prevent recruitment to those under 28-uears of age

o This position posits that competing definitions of child should be abandoned for
single universal standard (18 years)
- NOTE: Book uses age of 12 as cut-off of “child” and experiences in “childhood” – aligns
with research

Reflection Activity
Produce a unique definition of childhood based on your life experiences and things you’ve left
behind. What is your rationale? Do you think your definition differs from you peers?
- Need: (1) Definitions (2) Rationale (2) Does it differ? (75-100+ words all inclusive)

Based on my childhood experiences and the things I have left behind I think childhood is the
period that you have continuous guidance from your parents/guardians to lead you through life. I
chose this definition because growing up I always looked up to my parents to direct me in life or
teach me what to do. Since, as a child, I had very minimal knowledge and always found myself
in need of guidance on what I should and should not be doing. Also, my parents influenced my
morals of what I believe is right and wrong. However, around the time I turned ten the amount of
guidance my parents gave me significantly reduced since they wanted me to start figuring out the
world on my own. Thus, whenever I needed direction, I had to guide myself. When I reached this
point in my life, I realized my childhood was ending since I was becoming responsible for my
life and I had to “grow up”. My definition of childhood would differ from my peers because
everyone has been brought up/treated differently and have unique life experiences. Therefore,
they would define childhood differently compared to mine.

Post-Lecture Notes
Understand how the definition of child differs depending on context