In the early American families, “children were expected to be guided by their parents’ wishes in their matches” (Coontz, 2015, p. 41). Although that statement refers to the matches in marriage, the parents had control over all aspects of their children’s lives, and they would get married to have children so that they can use their help. Specifically, children would work on the farm and help father run family businesses from an early age so that they could carry on providing for the family once their parents became weak with age.
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the childhood could refer to any age group from children to young adults because there were no concepts of adolescence (Mintz, 2015, p. 57). A person became an adult only when they married or became independent by setting up their own farms or starting a full-time trade or profession. The age of the person did not matter because size, maturity and strength were the determinants of adulthood, and people were defined as children if they had lower capabilities than typical adults. In order to role of the parents was to “hurry the child toward adult status” (Mintz, 2015, p. 57).
The historical social construct of childhood in America resembles the childhood construct in contemporary, non-industrialized societies. For example, Punch (2000, p. 42-43) found that children in poor Bolivian households have more responsibilities during their early age compared to children from modern, industrialized societies because their labor may be critical for the survival of the family.
The consumer economy, which became well-established in the late 19th century America, was marked by several changes in society, including the extension of education into teenage years and the criminalization of child labor (Coontz, 2015, p. 47). Children in the early America were an integral part of family businesses and farms, and they were allowed to work like their fathers and fulfill the roles of breadwinners in the family. The changes associated with the consumer society changed the roles of the children in society, but the parent-child relationships remain similar in contemporary America as they were in early America.
Childhood is sometimes “romanticized as a time of carefree innocence, when children should play freely, untouched by the cares of the adult world” (Mintz, 2015, p. 56). However, parents tend to do everything in their power to stimulate the development of their children, and that includes buying educational toys to stimulate their academic development or involving them into multiple activities. The result of such parenting is often detrimental in the long run. According to Mintz (2015), one of the forms of social abuse is “seeing children as objects to be shaped and molded for their own good” (p. 65). In the American adult-oriented society, children do not have time to be carefree as they are consistently facing pressure from their parents and society to conform to the expectations of others and become functional adults as soon as possible.
Although children appear to have greater freedom in modern America than they had in early America, that is not completely true. Children no longer engage in labor to ensure the survival of their families, but they are still often expected to conform to their parents’ desires and social expectation. The only difference is that the expectations of parents have shifted facilitating the development of children into providers to facilitating their academic development. In both cases, the role of the parent remains unchanged as they are trying to facilitate the development of their children into adults as quickly as possible.
References
Coontz, S. (2015). The evolution of American families. In: B. J. Risman & V. Rutter (Eds.), Families as they really are (2nd ed.). New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.
Mintz, S. (2015). American childhood as a social and cultural construct. In: B. J. Risman & V. Rutter (Eds.), Families as they really are (2nd ed.). New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.
Punch, S. (2000). Children's strategies for creating playspaces: Negotiating independence in rural Bolivia. In: S. Holloway & G. Valentine (Eds.), Children’s geographies: Living, playing, learning and transforming everyday worlds (pp. 41-53). London: Routledge.
