The Child Who Keeps On Missing

For Thousands Of Years

We've all heard the all too overused phrase, "Oh, stop acting like a child!" Or "I wish you would just grow up!" Both of these phrases expose something hiding in plain sight -- society does not know what to do with children. And, it never has.

History has never really known what to do with children. Long ago, during the hunter-gatherer societies-depending on the practices and beliefs of a particular culture—The child would most likely be killed or sacrificed.

There was ritual infanticide in places like Egypt or the Levant. Usually in response to the need to appease the gods. Or, simply out of fear of a boy growing up to take the place of a king. These same practices were also found across ancient Mesoamerica.

This particular view of children as expendable for the sake of the gods did not limit itself to one geographic area. It’s still happening today. Parents to feel ill-equipped end up committing tragic cases of infanticide.

A HISTORICAL HABIT OF SILENCING THE CHILD

However, there are other forms of silencing children throughout history. In medieval history, we are met with the idea that children are perceived as mini-adults. It was very common for a child to work alongside a parent in their craft. The child could be as young as four years old and working in an environment blacksmithing.

Which of course, is not great for healthy developing lungs. Or, they could very well be in the field, hunched over with their father and mother-farming-working hours on end.

Depending on your personal philosophy, this might not be such a bad thing. However, when your body is developing – long term exposure to outside stimuli such as the above these could create long-term damage and health issues. In fact, it was known to.

Then we fast forward to the pre-Victorian era. Where the all too popular ideology that some still used today, that: “children should be seen and not heard” emerged on the social scene.

IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES, IT WAS THE WORST OF TIMES

However, during this time, society's focus changed to now utilizing education as a way in which to ensure children will become good citizens and nothing more. There was a very grave idea going around, that if children were left to themselves, they would only become criminals. They needed something to distract them. In this sense, we could even say, that the invention of the educational system became another way to silence the child.

Then we move to the industrial revolution. Where we have the prewar industrial revolution and the post-war industrial revolution. Where some families did not have the father figure present (because he was off to war), they would then rely on the children to bring in income; sometimes alongside the mother, sometimes without the mother's help.

Even today, we are still met with the idea that children cannot be real equal contributors to society until they are 16, 18, 21, and 25. We have created it and agreed upon it. What seems to be an acceptable systematization of maturity -- is really a tool to demonstrate that we still do not know what to do with children. However, the glaring obvious shortfall of this, is that it has all been done without the voice of the child being heard.

There is also a fanatical attempt to maintain mythology of innocence-that never Existed, we participate in the silencing of the child. We do not let the child vote. We silence their voice. We justify it. As a society, we are at a detriment for silencing the child, and thinking that the child has to be a certain age to participate in society in some way shape or form.

We must come to see their contribution in society as more than just simply subordinate balls of clay that we as adults get to help shape. We must be critical of messages, billboards, songs, religious beliefs and everything in between that seeks to undermine the important and valuable place of the child in teaching the human race about forwarding progress. We must be aware of the language we are using that encourages the marginalization of children until they are adult contributors. To do so, we have to be willing to start challenging those ideologies hiding in plain sight, today.

What are your thoughts? Do we, as a society, know what to do with children?

 Check out Platform For Children, a child advocacy organization: https://bit.ly/37LTV1UT