The Disappearance of Childhood [Paperback]

I'll start with the positives. Yes, it is interesting to consider how television has influenced children. Psychologists and other child researches have done extensive work on this and found that television's effects are mixed. Sesame Street, for example, is generally positive for children and their learning. Violent shows, are not. Media and culture also influence perceptions of children. But none of this is revolutionary, and it doesn't make up for the glaring deficiencies in this author's review of child history.

First, the author conveniently forgets that the history of childhood is a lot older than ancient Greece. Hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists provide a very different model. Second, the author brutally cherry-picks his data. There are dozens of examples of how much parents care for their children in each of Rome, Greece, and Medieval Europe, not to mention around the world. There are reams of evidence that children were treated as children, and recognized as such, throughout history. Until they were sexually mature, children were almost universally recognized as children, and treated differently than adults. Third, the author ignores plenty of modern evidence (e.g., abortion is a modern form of infanticide, as more arguably, so it birth control). I'm not casting judgments on those examples, just calling them for what they are- the same behavior with a different trapping. Parents in the past had to kill unwanted babies. As time went on and civilizations grew large enough to handle the surplus infants, adoption was created for unwanted babies. Now, birth control and abortion largely solve the issue of unwanted babies. Finally, people have been complaining about upcoming generations since ancient Greece, at least. The tired, but very familiar, refrain of "Today's kids are lazy, have less respect, less morals, etc." has been claimed by virtually every generation since Socrates. It's a tired hash that says nothing about what's actually going on.

So if you want to learn about today's children, I'd highly recommend reading about actual modern research on the effects of television on children. There's good books based on actual data. If you want to read about the history of childhood, and concepts of childhood, the same thing. Rawson's book of children in ancient Rome, Cunningham's book on children in Europe 1500-2000, Hewlett and Lamb's book on hunter-gatherer children, and possibly Stearns book on the history of childhood, are all MUCH better places to read about how children were truly viewed historically. And you'll find, not surprisingly, that while there were some differences, generally speaking adults treated children much the same way throughout history, and that the concept of childhood has changed very little.

Certainly, it is not disappearing. So I'd recommend spending your money elsewhere than this book.

When browsing for other items I saw by happy accident that this book is still available. It's a pleasure to recommend this brilliant piece of argument - that the postmodern world of hyper-communication has erased the passage of development we have hitherto called childhood and replaced the child with the little adult, with access to all the "secrets" of sexuality, risk and pleasurethat once were revealed in a series of steps over time as the young grew to maturity. Postman's message, that technology has not liberated but infantalized society, puts a frame around modern problems of education, child-raising, and loss of meaning. Whatever you make of this book you will not be neutral. It's a superb polemic, and one of my favourite books. Unreservedly recommended to everyone contemplating the raging "culture wars" with confusion.

I must disagree with Postman that childhood is not a biological reality. I would be very inclined to agree, if he gave some evidence for that statement. Though, childhood may be also a social construction, as well as a biological one.

This book basically says that everyone acted the same until the printing press came along. This medium created a society where you had adults that could access information via reading, whereas kids really couldn't (not like adults anyway). Hence, we now have a separation between the people that read (adults) and the ones that don't (children). As time went on, adults' books were complicated and had things forbidden to children in them. Children's books were simple and well constructed for their age. People then started seeing children as qualitatively different from themselves; they made special laws and special clothes for children.

However, that changed with TV. Now what adults know, children also know. There is no hiding any adult type information from children (like sex), because of the ease of accessing T.V. Furthermore, unlike books, you don't need to acquire a skill to access information via TV (like being able to read). Since most people aren't blind, the 6-year-old is similar to the 60-year-old now in accessing information. Consequently, we see the disappearance of childhood. (He offers a range of proofs on how childhood is indeed changing.)

Personally, I agree with the thesis, but believe the way it was derived, was weak. However, there is a lot of information to be learned by reading this. It is also a fun book to read. That is why I give it four stars.