THINQon : Does childhood exist anymore?

Kids Room Pre-teens Does childhood exist anymore?

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Hanna Clapson, I am an English major. I write and think. I...

Does childhood exist anymore?

Latest Post: August 5, 2011 at 9:14 AM

22 followers

A friend of mine was talking about an episode of South Park which I haven't seen but it got me thinking. He said the episode was about how all the Disney channel shows are selling sex to kids under the guise that the characters are pure. The Jonas Brothers are marketed as good Christian boys. They wear purity rings signaling their intent to wait until marriage before having sex. I wonder how much of that choice was their own and not the decision of people running their careers. According to my friend, South Park has made the assertion that the Brothers are really just being used to sell sex to young kids. Now, not knowing any of said Brother's music or much about them at all I can't attest to any specifics beyond what my friend mentioned. At concerts the Brothers are known to shoot white foam from fire hoses onto their screaming 10 year old fans. But, that's still not enough for me to throw them under the chopping block.

However, I do think I've made enough observations in my 10 year old cousin to comment on some growing pre-teen trends. Though the Jonas Brothers and similar shows/music acts like High School Musical and Hannah Montana or what have you, are probably not so knowingly selling sex to kids like my friend and south park suggest, they are providing glimpses to younger children of an older world. In my opinion, children are "maturing" at a younger age so much in fact, that the stereotypical high school experience that is represented in shows like Freaks and Geeks, which took place in the early 80s, is now more indicative of middle school and junior high than high school. Cruelty and bullying are becoming more and more prevalent in the lower grades. A lot of this has to do with these shows that aren't necessarily selling sex to kids, but they are certainly selling image.

These shows are displaying the high school world to kids between 8 and 12 years old. These shows are provided as models for adolescence. My cousin wants nothing more than to be Hannah Montana. I mean hell, I remember watching cartoons until I was like 13. But maybe I am being unfair, I do remember loving Saved by the Bell at around the same age. Surely that was the same thing. It represented the lure of an older realm. So maybe it is completely natural for my cousin to be attracted to these shows and maybe I am only reacting to all the added channels since I was a kid which makes it seem like there are more and more of these types of shows.

But still, I just can't shake off the feeling that these shows along with accessibility to more advanced technology at an earlier age is resulting in the erasure of a childhood. I mean I've seen kids as young as 8 with iPhones. What could they possibly be doing on an iPhone?

Where do you think childhood stands these days and how much do you think that has to do with television and technology?

Reply to:

Virginia Bird

July 16, 2009 at 1:50 AM

20 followers

Hi Hanna,
First of all I wanted to connect this to the discussion on Do adults exist anymore? , and specifically a nice post by Blanca Thomas on how children don't exist anymore.

As to your question of childhood, an interesting example is menstruation (the period) which nowadays start at a much earlier age, sometimes shockingly so. Whether it has to do with our nutrition or psychology is a different question, but somewhat with both.

As for selling sex compared to cartoons, I don't know if you've seen some of the cartoons kids watch today but some are Japanese anime, where the main characters are long-legged women dressed in extra short minis and bras which can't hold their breasts. It is hard to differentiate between the kids cartoons and cartoon porn for adults. The difference might simply be whether they use white foam from hoses, as you mention, or other things.
The fact that these cartoons are not banned but are shown on morning TV I find shocking, but hey, the kids like'em (and I'm sure they will grow up to respect women tremendously).

Personally, I find the access to these shows much more troublesome than another access kids nowadays have which is to porn, in a way they never had before. A six year old can sit at home quietly watching extremely hardcore porn. Obviously this changes people, and is an awful thing, but at least it is less purposeful than the porn they are fed by the disney channel or other such channels. (In general I think hardcore causes less harm to society than softcore porn.)

One hears of cases now of orgies of ten year olds, something no one over 20 can, I think, fathom, and which is a total shock to our system.
What can we do? Not allow them to watch TV? Sue the Disney channel for corrupting our kids? Close them in a room with no electricity?

You mention the 8 year olds with iPhones, and dressing as adults. This has been going on for a very long time, but it is still shocking seeing so many 12 year olds dressed up like a 20 year old club-goer (for lack of a better word). Their faces still witness their age, but I find it to be less and less the case.

Reply to: or

Mark Schreiber

March 27, 2010 at 4:30 AM

4 followers

I would argue that it's never been a better time to be a child and that for most of history childhood as we know it didn't exist. Children were simply small adults. They were considered property, they worked, they were married in their early teens (I think Gandhi was married at 12), and they were trained to act as adults. (You can still see this in France and England, whose cultures don't cater to children as America's does.) I'm sure you've read a lot of Dickens, which is filled with scenes of judges and other adults speaking to young children as though they were responsible, mature persons, deserving no leniency due to their age. I also deplore the sexualization of childhood in popular culture - especially in fashion - but I can't think of any time when things have been better. A friend from Manaus is always telling me stories of very young teen girls getting pregnant, and they don't have televisions or cell phones. The other important point, the most important point, also gleaned from Dickens as well as from history, is that childhood death, especially from infectious disease has been reduced from a commonplace occurrence to a rare tragedy.

Reply to: or

Sean Anglon

In response to Mark Schreiber

April 5, 2010 at 7:35 PM

6 followers

Mark,

While it is true that childhood as we (adults over 30) know it is relatively a new phenomena, it seems that the renaissance of "childhood innocence", at least in the U.S., occurred during the middle to end of the last century (1950 - 1980). During this period, because the standard of living continually rose in the U.S. as the country reaped the benefit of being the only world power not having to rebuild after WWII, children gained freedoms unheard of in either previous generations or other countries. This era was marked by a few traits: adults filtered the majority, if not all, information children consumed; at least one parent was around to answer questions and teach life lessons; and the adults in the surrounding neighborhood/community felt obligated to "aid" children mature.

Hanna, to answer your question, I feel current conditions have created the perfect storm for the decline of the aforementioned innocence. First, vast amounts of both creditable and questionable images and information are easily accessible via the internet or television. Next, fewer, or in many case no, adults are there to serve as filters since since not only do the majority of both parents or the only parent probably works eight or more hours at least five days a week but many neighborhood adults also no longer feel it is their place to "interfere" in the affairs of their neighbors. Often, it seems people solely blame technology for the current state of childhood when parents, caregivers and other adults in a child's life must share the blame. Now, in a few ways, this loss of innocence can be viewed as more good than bad. I'll save that for another post.