Bringing Up Baby
Bringing Up Baby
The Construction of Childhood
This chapter focuses on the construction of childhood as the adult defined, historically and culturally constructed state of being a child, as distinct from the experiences, biology, and psychology of children. It explores the emergence of the modern concept of idealized childhood and juxtaposes it to anti-childhood, which is an equally idealized concept of a child in absolute want. Aylan Kurdi, the Syrian boy whose drowned body washed up on a Turkish beach and became a viral image, serves as a case study for the dichotomy between idealized childhood and anti-childhood. The social implications of notions of childhood are explored with reference to social debates over child soldiers and the legal age for marriage.
Keywords: childhood, child psychology, anti-childhood, Aylan Kurdi, child soldiers, legal age for marriage
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