Historical Models of Childhood

Introduction

• How childhood is defined influences how children’s literature is created and interpreted.

• Historical views of "the child" vary, reflecting beliefs about inherent nature (savagery, sin, innocence).

• Multiple, sometimes contradictory, ideas about children can coexist, shaped by factors like age, gender, and class.

Historical Models of Childhood

• Several competing models of childhood have existed since the $17^{th}$ century in British and US culture.

• These models overlap and are not linear, serving as lenses for analyzing children's literature.

The Romantic Child

• Core Idea: Children embody innocence, purity, and a closeness to nature, God, or the spiritual world.

• Philosophical Roots: John Locke (mind as "tabula rasa," shaped by experience, $1690$; education's importance, $1693$) and Rousseau (natural innocence needing guidance, "Emile," $1762$).

• Literary Examples: Blake ("Songs of Innocence," $1789$), Wordsworth (Ode: "Intimations of Immortality," $1807$), The Secret Garden ($1911$).

The Sinful Child

• Core Idea: Children are corrupt and need strict discipline and reform.

• Historical Roots: Puritan belief in innate sinfulness (Samuel Sewall, $1673-1729$) and the Evangelical shift towards moral reform and Sunday Schools (Robert Raikes, mid-$18^{th}$ century).

• Literary Examples: Jessica’s First Prayer ($1867$), The Bad Seed ($1954$), Draco Malfoy in Harry Potter.

The Working Child

• Core Idea: Children are economic assets and laborers, contributing to the family or state.

• Historical Context: Early colonial labor (Virginia Company, $1620s$) and urban child labor documented by Jacob Riis ("How the Other Half Lives," $1890$).

• Literary Examples: Ragged Dick ($1868$), The Glory Field ($1994$).

The Sacred Child

• Core Idea: Children are precious, fragile, and aesthetic objects requiring protection and constant care (Viviana Zelizer).

• Historical Preconditions: Compulsory education laws (Massachusetts $1852$) and child labor restrictions (from $1870s$ to $1930s$).

• Literary Examples: Pollyanna ($1913$), Miracle’s Boys ($2000$).

The Child as Radically Other

• Core Idea: Children are fundamentally different from adults, not just developing versions of them.

• Example: Calvin and Hobbes ($1985$–$1995$), where Calvin’s imaginary world is unseen by adults.

The Developing Child

• Core Idea: Childhood is a period of continuous physical, cognitive, and emotional growth toward adulthood.

• Key Figures: G. Stanley Hall (founder of child psychology, "Adolescence," $1904$), Sigmund Freud (psychodynamics), Jean Piaget (stages of cognitive development from $1920s$ onward).

• Literary Examples: Christopher Robin in Pooh books, Then Again, Maybe I Won’t ($1971$).

The Child as Miniature Adult

• Core Idea: Societies sometimes depicted or treated children as having adult-like agency, knowledge, or capability (Philippe Ariès, "Centuries of Childhood," $1960$).

• Literary Examples: Claudia Kincaid in From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler ($1967$), Sal in Walk Two Moons ($1994$).

Using Models of Childhood to Read Critically

• These models provide a framework to analyze what a text assumes about children, the anxieties it reveals, and the version of childhood it supports or critiques.

Ethical and Philosophical Implications

• These models reflect debates over balancing child protection with autonomy, education, and development, and competing philosophies about human nature (nature vs. nurture).