Childhood in South Childhood Dynamics;

¶ … Childhood in South

Childhood Dynamics; Perceptions of Children: Literature Review

Erica Burman: Appealing and Appalling Children, Psychoanalytic Studies

While Burman's title creates a sense that her 14-page research piece in Psychoanalytic Studies will delve in the main on nice and not-so-nice children, a careful read shows that her article is really about adult-child relationships, and adult perceptions of children. The insights that she presents - based on her obviously thorough literature review - provide generous and even provocative food for thought and consumption; some of her material is generalized, and other passages relate specifically to "north" and "south" childhood issues.

She argues on page 285 that current images of the functions of childhood are so "polarized" in our minds that researchers are prevented from truly "addressing the complexity and challenge of dealing with our own investments."

Burman spends substantial time defining the ways in which children and childhood are identified; she begins with Freud (287), who offered three modes of identification: 1) "based on resemblance or assimilation" (where the subject identifies with the other); 2) "as the replacement for the abandoned object choice" (the subject identifies "the other with him/herself"); 3) "identification with others based on a common shared trait" (the desire "to be loved"). A less esoteric approach to identifying childhood dynamics is through images (288), including the following universal images: a) children are appealing; b) the power of the image of a child "occludes the ambivalence" of adults' real interactions with children; c) children, in particular babies, "sell, and sell products"; d) babies "signify happiness, innocence, freedom from responsibility"; e) children invoke the idea of "uncomplicated relationships"; f) adults identify with the nurturing associated with children; g) and, culturally, very young children are positioned "within the domain of asexuality," Burman explains.

Meantime, the above-described model of a childhood as a period of "dependency and immaturity" is both "modern and northern," hence the contemporary northern notion of childhood is in part one linked to the age of industrialization and the advent of schooling that is compulsory (288). That schooling prepares the child for being a dependent, "malleable" worker, rather than a "young and active, economically autonomous" part of a generation, Burman continues. The fact that the contemporary northern approach to raising a child - the model being that the child is "innocent, unknowing," and in need of training and being "contained," is a result of "puritan doctrines of original sin" as well as the practical need in northern society of "regulating families and maintaining social order."

Chris Jenks: Childhood 1996: Sounding a theme similar to Burman's essay, in which that innocent, unknowing, "modern, Western" child is seen ("publicly") by adults as the "Apollonian child"; this is the child who is "angelic, innocent and untainted by the world which they have recently entered," writes Chris Jenks (Childhood, 73). That northern / Western child has a "natural goodness and clarity of vision that we might 'idolize' or even 'worship' as the source of all that is best in human nature," Jenks explains.

The children thus described "play and chuckle, smile and laugh," but adults detest their "tears and tantrums," Jenks asserts; adults only want "the illumination of their halo. This is humankind before either Eve or the apple," he continues, echoing the theme of Burman ("puritan doctrines of original sin").

And unlike children being raised in the south, these northern children are not, Jenks writes, "curbed nor beaten into submission," but rather, they are "encouraged, enabled and facilitated." And adult society enables, encourages, and places children in "high profile" positions which renders them "subject to new forms of control" (68) Jenks believes. And in fact, though adults "idolize" children, childhood is the "most intensively governed sector of personal existence. Why? Because the "health, welfare, and rearing of children..." is directly linked to "the destiny of the nation and the responsibilities of the state."

And moreover, Jenks writes (quoting Hillman), "Whatever we say about children and childhood is not altogether really about children and childhood." And Jenks deciphers that statement as meaning that, when the dust settles on all the analysis about childhood, in fact childhood is a "casual repository for the explanation of self and the progress of the psyche." In addition, the child is "moral and political," not simply "natural" and "not merely normal." And theories of the child are "always pointers towards the social construction of reality... [thus] the way we treat our children is indicative of the state of our social structure..." And the way we "control children reflects...the strategies through which we exercise power and constraint in the wider society."

So, it appears the two authors are intimating that it's not just a love affair with children because they're so innocent and angelic; it's because the future of the country is in their hands and let's not have them screw it up?)

Meanwhile, in her essay, Burman continues with three "bipolar dimensions" around which adult-child relations are organized in the contemporary northern experience. 1) There exists innocence and inexperience in children, however, this can be reversed because within the northern cultural "sediment" (created by Wordsworth's "lyricism") children are also "party to knowledge and experiences that adults lack or have 'forgotten'"; 2) though children are dependent and adults autonomous, adults are envious of the freedom that children enjoy, which children don't recognize until adults tell them these are "the best days of your lives"; 3) while children are spontaneous and adults reflective, adults yearn to be more spontaneous and to escape from their northern world of "regulation and self-regulation" (289).

Interestingly, Burman includes in her lengthy essay several psychological models of approaching childhood that she doesn't necessarily adhere to, but presents them as food for thought. For example, she alludes to the notion "Winnicott (1958)" put forward that "the cost (or perhaps the gain) of sentimentality is sadism." And hence, by taking on the "paternal, culturally sanctioned position of sentimentalizing children," adults are "acting out the rage of the surrender of our lost love(s)." Hence, there is "aggression within pity" when it comes to the northern view of childhood and children. and, further, Burman says that "we are in deep and tricky waters" in approaching children from this standpoint, e.g., applying the approaches of Winnicott and Alice Miller - that adults believe that they act in children's "best interests" while in fact denying children's "agency, autonomy and participation in decision making" (291).

Speaking of the child's best interests, Burman writes that children's "fairy stories" (currently being circulated and distributed primarily "in the north"), resulted from the "moral panics" from the 1960s, when many educators and parents were up in arms over the perceived "gore and violence" of children's literature. When adults over-reacted to some of the literature then, and the "sanitisation" occurred, children's books became "arid" and repressed cultural knowledge.

Another aspect of the approach to public opinion in the north is the "appalling children" part of Burman's essay: "publicizing humanitarian emergencies through the depiction of children in need, especially black children," and in particular, little girls (292). The appeals through these commercials to white, rich, adults who are competent, "confirms our sense of power," Burman writes, "and reassures 'us' that 'we' are not 'them.'" and Burman asks, poignantly, when "we" give to a cause that shows a poor, black, starving child with flies on his face, "whose child is being saved: our idealized conception, or the real children whose lives and welfare are at risk?"

On page 294, Burman writes that "what is significant here is the prevalence not only of images of children as indicators of more general need, but of little girls. Girls form the main image corpus of aid appeals, thus invoking a familiar...elision of woman and children within the more general discourse of the disempowered and incapable." The "sadomasochistic dynamics of child suffering appear to participate" within the genre of "fascination and repudiation" (295) she continues. And in that context, if childhood is "natural" then clearly not all children "partake of the category." And the children who most often break from this model - the "white, middle class northern children" - are the "southern children, minority black children, working class children the world over, and especially girls (since the culturally privileged model of the playing child is really a boy)..." (296).

Those "unnatural" children are "street children in Brazil and Guatemala," "children who engage in paid work," and children who live away from "traditional cross-generational families."

Erica Burman: The Abnormal Distribution of Development: policies for Southern women and children; Gender Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography 1995: "...If children are 'our' future," Burman writes, "then it is interesting to see that the images of children who lay claim to the world are white European children."

And moreover, she continues, "While northern children 'develop' dominant discourses," children in the South "are preoccupied with 'survival'." And along these lines of thinking, Burman insists that, particularly in the UK, children typically are "abstracted from culture and nationality" in order to present images of "innocence," and the "quintessential goodness of humankind untainted by the cruel, harsh, contaminating world." Hence, images of children are often used to "reproach the rest of the adult world for its misdemeanours"; and in presenting that picture, children connote "both the future and a moral voice of the 'good self'..."

Burman generalizes that the "universalization of Northern childhood thus mirrors the Northern colonial domination of the South." And interfaced with that dynamic, she continues, is the "Christian symbolism associated with colour ("white-child-angel, black child-devil")... [and] the fact that where "black and white children are portrayed together [in commercials or public service announcements for aid-related agencies] the white figure adopts a protective...and sometimes enveloping...stance towards the black, which...extends beyond the human to the portrayal of animals." And in contemporary aid and development literature, childhood "has been fractured so that only children of the North develop, while children of the South are primarily portrayed as those whose childhoods have been stolen." Children of the North's concerns, in advertising, are "early education and environmental enrichment," while Southern children's concerns are portrayed "on mere survival."

B. Rwezaura: The Concept of the Child's Best Interests in the Changing Economic and Social Context of Sub-Saharan Africa (in the Best Interests of the Child, Philip Alston) 1994: Given the fact that there has been, and still is, a vast disparity between the quality of life and the door of opportunities for children in the North in contrast with children in the South (and in other Third World countries), the United Nations (in 1989) adopted the "Convention on the Rights of the Child." Much fanfare accompanied this convention, and nearly 140 countries have signed on as parties; however, even though the convention gained a lot of support in Africa, there is not yet "an agreed standard by which compliance can be measured," Rwezaura writes.

Among the problems contributing to the lack of enforcement of uniform rights for children in Africa are: a) European colonialism brought Christianity, Islam, and new marriage laws, which resulted in "conflicting social identities and values"; b) the introduction of Western ideas of individualism into pre-capitalist communal societies "as well as the partial and often distorted penetration of capitalism into these economies" have brought social conflicts "and insecurity all over Africa" (83).

That said, it is difficult to imagine children in Africa ("South") ever having opportunities on a par with children in the North, when African children "are still 'given' to other relatives to enhance kinship relationships," according to Rwezaura. "A young married woman may be given a child to look after because she is lonely... [and] a grandparent living apart from adult married children has a right to ask for a child from his son to help make a fire, run errands, and perform all the tasks appropriate to his age" (91). Indeed, an older woman without grandchildren "...would be considered a witch by her peers." In a census poll in Sierra Leone, of women aged 25-29, forty percent reported having given away a child.

Additionally, childhood in the South entails work at an early age, thus, there would be no chance for educational advancement even if schools were universally available, which they are not. "Boys and girls of three years are given the task of herding small stock such as sheep, calves, and goats" in Tanzania (90), Rwezaura continues. And the practice of child-pledging (trading future sons and daughters for grain or cattle) in Zimbabwe is still a reality. And with these practices still in place in Africa - notwithstanding United Nations conventions - is it any wonder that there are such enormous cultural, economic, and moral differences between North and South. And how could anyone knowledgeable about such cultural chasms expect narrowing any time soon?

Allison James: Childhood Identities: Self and Social Relationships in the Experience of the Child 1993: James' perceptions of how childhood is viewed by adults (74) take on notions not unlike Burman and Jenks. "Childhood cannot be regarded...as the universal biological condition of immaturity which all children pass through," James writes. Rather, childhood must be "more critically depicted as embracing particular cultural perceptions" about that biological condition. And those cultural perceptions are shaped by the professions who study children and write about childhood; in Western societies writers emphasize "ideals of happiness and sexual innocence, 'a period of lack of responsibility, with rights to protection and training, but not to autonomy,'" James asserts. These ideals, set forth in the literature, allow adults to justify the "marginal" position children have within Western societies, and justify the "denial of their personhood."

And within the tradition of the literature he describes, "children rarely appear as themselves" (76). Instead, they are "symbolic embodiments of culture"; they are rarely seen as "knowing subjects"; and unfortunately, one consequence of these views of children is that their own "views, thoughts and ideas about growing up were rarely documented." And by accepting this "dominant developmental approach provided by psychology," the perception of children was that they were in a "pre-social period of difference," in other words, not quite human.

And thus, James goes on, the child is depicted as "not yet fully human, as more subject to and dependent upon some essential 'nature' than adults"; e.g., a battle of "culture" vs. "nature."

Michael Freeman: The Moral Status of Children: Essays on the Rights of the Child 1997: Freeman takes the idea of "rights" for children on a number of journeys; initially, he notes (84) that public debate and public policy has centered around the fact that "children are objects of intervention rather than legal subjects." "Children's rights," as a movement, "has been couched predominately in child-saving language, in terms of salvation." It has centered on protecting individual children, rather than defending or defining the rights of children as a community.

And those, Freeman continues, "who argue that, however important rights are, it is not necessary to recognize as such children's rights," are employing one of two operative myths. The first myth "idealizes adult-child relations" (85) by focusing on the cliche that "adults (and parents in particular) have the best interests of children at heart." The second myth is that "childhood is synonymous with innocence," it is the "golden age" of a person's life, and it's a time of "freedom, joy, of play." Therefore, just as "we avoid the responsibilities and adversities of adult life in childhood, so there should be no necessity" to worry about children's rights. Rights, therefore, according to that myth, are to be applied when you grow up to be an adult.