Children, Adults, Abuse and Experts

Offered for your consideration: two links to provoke reflection on the state of Western society.

Both deal with children and 'progressive' dystopic interference with their childhood development. We all know that physical, psychological and sexual abuse of children is immoral (or do we? See the second link). However, we should also be on guard against the societal abuse of children.

The first is from the New York Times: A Best Friend? You Must Be Kidding

From this piece consider the following:

“I think it is kids’ preference to pair up and have that one best friend. As adults — teachers and counselors — we try to encourage them not to do that,” said Christine Laycob, director of counseling at Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School in St. Louis. “We try to talk to kids and work with them to get them to have big groups of friends and not be so possessive about friends.”

The second link is from the always poignant MercatorNet: Troubling theories about childhood innocence

And from our second witness:

In a paper on this theme, “Kiss and tell: Gendered narratives and childhood sexuality”, Mindy Blaise, a senior lecturer in the faculty of education at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, describes how she tested this theory on some three- and four-year-old children in an Australian childcare centre.

It is worth looking at this is some detail to understand her method.

Using a popular picture book aimed at 6- to 10-year-old children (Clarice Bean, That’s me by Lauren Child) Blaise focuses on a page where Clarice’s older sister Marcie is sitting on her bed reading a fashion magazine. The researcher points and reads out to the children (4 girls and 3 boys) thought bubbles saying: Do boys give you the dreamy eye? Are you a flirt? Have you ever kissed a boy?

Beyond the deadly serious issues both articles raise (and make no mistake, these reveal very serious matters, indeed), I am also led to ask the more prosaic questions:

Why do children need to 'schedule' playtime?

Is this not already a sign that something is seriously wrong with Western society's approach to child rearing?

Out of the Mouth of Babes and the Wisdom of the Elders

This morning I highly recommend the Ochlophobist's posting: girls, uninterrupted . Also, a blog I wandered across called Archangel's Wanderings. At the latter site, the particular entry entitled Can We Make a Difference? This moving existential contemplation is thoughtful on its own, but I particularly want to point your attention the the sole comment. When I read the posting, I wanted to add a note, but when I read the comment I realized what needed to be said (and recalled by us all) had already been said with more eloquence than this rambler would have contributed.

Go. Read them. Now. Smile and hug someone.