Articles on Child Development

"Factors Influencing The Development of The Idea of Childhood in Europe and America" by Jim Vandergriff & Chris Livesey on Childhood

Both articles were rather interesting, though I found myself partial to the Vandergriff article. I found it interesting how children working in factories and mines seemed to come about. Though it still has obvious glaring flaws, the logic of keeping children busy to "save their souls". The appeal of a younger work force is also logical, but I'm curious of what sort of problems this caused in the creation of literature for children. You can see why children's literature took time to truly occur considered that children were needed to work and bring income into their families. The invent of Sunday schools surely helped it out. That's just the lower classes though. All things considered, it's easy to see how children were viewed as "little adults" up until the 15th century.
I think it's crazy for children to of had to endure this, but frankly it doesn't seem like they knew anything else during this time. I was happy to see as things progressed that the hours changed, school became a bigger part of life, and children were even dressed differently than the adults they practically mirrored. That to me seems like the birth of true childhood.
Childhood has changed from the past to modern eras, even compared with our grandparents. My grandmother who would have been 98 this past December was of a similar mindset along with my grandfather. Though they were kind and nurturing people, they didn't understand why their grandchildren acting like little crazy beasts and their great-grandchildren even moreso. It's exactly as you say, they didn't have the same freedoms. I think the cause may be because this was during the age when consumption was back down (The Great Depression!) as well as early on in the process of childhood actually occurring. The definition between parent and child was almost too strong I think, and there was little respect for the child and their own freedom. I wonder if the changes in the economy these days will have any noticeable effect on childhood when people look back on us in the future.

Isn't it also interesting to consider how much longer childhood has become?

It's amazing to think about. Not just the evolving of childhood, but also the growth of of parenthood after those times as well. The change in the way the parents behaved toward their children also changed the length of the childhood period. There were honestly many factors as well though, and in the end I feel like maybe the official cap was the creation of the nuclear family which gave the child a definite different role from their parents within the family. It's shocking to realize that childhood can almost extend to as late as 18 or older in some cases. That is if you count "childhood" as anything that isn't yet "adulthood", which is honestly very simplistic.

Isn't the evolution of parenthood dependent upon the evolution of the idea of childhood?

I think they definitely evolved together since the one sort of created the need for the other. I mean, there were always children and parents, it's just that the roles have become more distinct in time.

On the "simplistic"--it is, but how else might we define those states?

Well yeah, that's the problem of it. In my mind it gets to a "do or don't" sort of situation. I like to lean toward do personally, at least by sorting terms. I'd rather not see Dr. Seuss hanging out with books like Judy Blume's "Forever". Which I've never heard of as being bad, just definitely not for the same age group of readers.

The idea of the Seuss/Blume connection is a good one--some libraries and book stores--mainly bookstores--already do a "If you liked this, you'll like this" thing, and its a way of getting kids to read stuff that might otherwise be "beyond their level."

This is exactly the sort of thing I'd like! With the huge popularity of books like Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series, young adults at least are in a good position to be shown other interesting books. Edward is the Byronic hero at his best and worst. He isn't dangerous for his personalty, but for his species. He forces himself to not have what he wants most and when he does have it, he can't feel right about keeping her and changing her to what he is. This is perfect for placement of Victorian and Romance era classic novels. The author is honestly trying to hard as she even has the characters, high school students, reading "Wuthering Heights", but I'm really going off on a tangent if I start going in to that.

Also, other Blume novel would be great, but "Forever" is too much unless it's beside "Oh The Places You Will Go" perhaps. But I still agree with the idea you brought up from that!