The concept of childhood has changed over the years - in the Victorian era, working-class children were sent out to work and earn money for the family, but now they are protected from the adult world; their position has changed from one of supplementing the family income to that of a relatively inactive member of the household in economic terms, and are regarded as innocent beings that need protecting from the hardships of life. They are dependent members of the family.
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| Children as sources of labour |
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| The artful dodger |
‘Today, a four year-old who can tie his or her shoes is impressive. In colonial times, four-year-old girls knitted stockings and mittens and could produce intricate embroidery: at age six they spun wool. A good, industrious little girl was called 'Mrs.' instead of 'Miss' in appreciation of her contribution to the family economy: she was not, strictly speaking, a child’.
How children are seen and how they are perceived in various countries are dramatically different:
In Tonga children are considered to be "mad" because they lack the highly prized quality of social competence and are regularly beaten by parents and elder siblings.
They are regularly told off for being clumsy and a child who falls over may be laughed at, shouted at, or beaten. Children are thought of as mischievous; they cry or want to feed simply because they are naughty, and beatings are at their most severe between the ages of three and five when children are seen as particularly wilful.
Parents believe that social competence can only be achieved through discipline and physical punishment, and treat their children in ways that have seemed very harsh to outsiders.
The beng, who are a small ethnic group in west africa, have radically different views on childhood - they assume that very young children understand what is said to them in whatever language they are spoken to.
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| Independent Beng children of West Africa |
They believe children, before they are born, come from a spirit world where they know all human languages and understand all cultures. The spirit world is a happy place fr the children where they have many friends, and they are reluctant to leave it for an earthly family. Children keep in contact with that world for several year and some children, who have not been taken care of properly, decide to go back to the spirit world, so they are treated with tenderness and care so they do not return there. They are also treated with some reverence, as they are linked to the spirit world.
In our society, right now there is the problem of the sexualisation of children, especially girls, in the new media, and companies are selling high heels and bikinis for toddlers, and young girls are being dressed up and made up like older women.
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| Katie Price's daughter Princess Tiaamii wearing lip gloss, eye shadow and what looks like a pair of your Xtreme Turbo-Shocked Bat Look false eyelashes |
There are two general representations of children which are binary opposites - the angelic child and the demonic child. Children are either a picture of innocence and the embodiment of good, or are terrors possessed by demons.
