Views Of Children In James Janeway's A Token For Children

The various essays comprising Children in Colonial America look at different characteristics of childhood in the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Children coming to the American colonies came from many different nations and through these essays, authors analyze children from every range of social class, race, and ability in order to present a broad picture of childhood in these times. While each essay deals with an individual topic pertaining to childhood, they all combine to provide a strong argument that children were extremely valued in society, were not tiny adults, and were active participants in society.

Childhood is a social construct that has been weaved together by societal norms and domineering perspectives. Childhood is not a physical or mental state but an abstraction that has been melded by society as time has progressed. In Karen Sanchez-Eppler’s excerpt titled “Childhood” from the novel Keywords for Children’s Literature, she explains how the attitudes and atmosphere surrounding childhood have vastly changed throughout history to yield the general, modern conception of childhood. Children have been deemed adults in the Middle Ages and childhood has been a vaguely regarded concept. However, as society has become more progressive and developed, an interest in distinguishing the young from the older individuals

Since the view of childhood changes in the nineteenth century, the potential of children’s literature becomes evident. With the reference to the sources of children’s literature, they can be traced back to alterations in translation and in the literature for adults, where a child or childhood are essential concepts; moreover folk literature is concerned to be a wide source for this literary genre. According to Peter Hunt

In the Puritan Religion, all children were supposed to be looked down upon, and hold no power. They were supposed to be closer to the devil than any adult, as we could see during the Salem Witch Trials. Death by sin was also constant fear in the child’s mind, and the children were so afraid to sin, that they usually ended up sinning. Also, children lived with the fear of not experiencing God for their memberships to the church. In this time, to be a citizen, you had to be a member of the church. When the children of the elect were born, they were automatically given membership to the church, because they were for surely experience God. When some of them did not, they lived inconstant fear of what was to to come of them and their future children. The constant fears and pressures of the Puritan child lead to problems within the community (Campbell).

“I believe in the children of the future,” are lyrics of The Greatest Love of All, made famous in 1977 and 1985 by George Benson and Whitney Houston respectively. They believed in the value of children in our society and that they should be protected. However, those people believed in a child 's capacity to change the world in the future. While people in the past saw children as a way to change the world while they were children. In the late seventeenth century, industrialization arose in England ushering in a new era of industry in our world. More industry means more workers, including children. With the rise of industrialization in a nation, child laborers are viciously abused due to their niche roles in production and their families

Childhood is a crucial time in a person’s life and it needs to be kept innocent and pure for the child’s well-being later in life. The most important recurring theme in the novel Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O’Neill is the loss of innocence at a young age and the profound complications later in life. The complete loss of innocence is built-up with multiple different experiences over time. For Baby, these experiences are: when she is first exposed to drug use, when she spends time in foster care and when she becomes engaged in prostitution.

Today, some children have had a tendency to favor materialistic items over respect for parents; however, Ray Bradbury, the author of “The Veldt” disagrees with this concept. Bradbury believes that when children are too involved in items, they become brainwashed and it has a negative effect on society. Mr. and Mrs. Hadley (the parents) from “The Veldt”, struggle to discipline their kids, which results in the children not having a priority to respect them. Through using allusions, setting, and technology, the author warn children that materialistic items should not be valued higher than respect for their parents.

As time goes on the aspects and views of individuals change, which is usually caused by their surroundings. These aspects can generally be displayed in various physical forms and actions . During the duration of the 1500’s to the 1700’s major events lead to many to Europeans alter their religious and cultural views which can clearly be seen through their techniques of childrearing. The techniques displayed the mindset of the individuals as views based on the corrupt church transformed into new ideas of enlightenment.

Children have been described as our future, our greatest resource, and our hope for a better tomorrow. For many Americans, though, children invoke fear. They represent violence, a segment of society lacking in self-control and devoid of ethics and morals, and the failure of the family to instill traditional values, chief among them being the value of human life and respect for others.

Self preservation and personal comfort, another consistent theme throughout the story is continuously perpetuated as generation-after-generation of residents are introduced to the unspeakable treatment of this helpless child. Ironically when first exposed to the atrocity, most children were more disgusted and outraged by the horrible predicament of the child than the adults who by all accounts should have been responsible for its protection. This obvious moral role reversal signifies a purity and innocence that is often present in a child’s perspective that is untarnished by corrupt societal teachings and norms. Additionally, the comparison between the moral integrity of

“No parent should ever have to look at a tiny infant and fear that one day that child would be a victim of exploitative child labor”, John Kerry. Unfortunately, parents were forced to send their children to work in undesirable conditions in order to maintain their struggling households. Throughout history child labor has been a controversial subject especially in the 19th century. To cope with the horrors that went on during this time people often expressed themselves through literature. Childhood is intended to be pure pleasure unlike any other that should not be interrupted by horrendous labors which caused books, poems, and novels to be an expressive outlet for author’s thoughts about it.

As the people of Omelas continued to accept the truth of their city, some have begun to see the child as more of an it than a person and regarded the child similar to a wild animal. “One of them may come in and kick the child to make it stand up. The others never come close, but peer in at it with frightened, disgusted eyes” (245). Not only do the residents accept the child’s misery, they have also

Ground-breaking, momentous, and a time of great struggle, the Industrial Revolution was famous for its innovations and infamous for the sobering reality it inflicted upon the standard family. Mid-18th century Britain brought poverty to everyday urban workers. With it, came an increase in child labor like never seen before. In order for a normal family to survive in the urban lifestyle, all members of a family had to work. This included children as young as four years to work as chimney sweepers, miners, and most popularized in 18th century Britain, factory workers. By the year 1800, children under the age of 14 in Britain’s factories accounted for 50% of the labor force (“Industrial Revolution, Child Labor”). Though the number continued to grow, all did not go unaccounted for. Romanticism, an effort opposite the movement, gave recognition to the emotional conflicts overlooked. Romanticism shed light on the daily struggles of the everyday man, woman, and the most neglected up until that period of time, the child. Throughout history, others have written about childhood, but Romantic poets began to question what it meant to be a child. The question, though not answered directly, later became revealed in their works where it exposed their belief systems. The role of the child in British Romantic Poetry represents the early life of Romantic poets, and the qualities they possessed in childhood.

The earlier governing Puritan faith perceived childhood to be a perilous period, and believed children to be inherently sinful; consequential of the 'fall ', which saw a widespread influential religious implication in literature of the time. Children 's literature was therefore geared toward the instruction of children, concerned with providing role models to instruct their behaviour, and was preoccupied with the notion of saving the child 's soul.

Let children be children, is not only a popular phrase heard in education, but it is also my motto. Yes, it is true, today’s children are tomorrow’s future; but how we choose to raise our children determines the outcome of our future. Many believe academics should be stressed more in schools, taking away from children’s playtime. I feel that play is what molds a child. Play allows not only a child’s imagination to run freely, but builds and strengthens children’s motor, language, cognitive, and social emotional development skills. I believe that play; along with parental involvement forms a child’s identity. Play is what makes children: tomorrow’s future.