February 2, 2011 by Kim Rybacki
What is Childhood?
This question seems easy enough to answer. We have all experienced childhood in our own lives, and continue to have some level of interaction with or exposed to children. In class, we had little trouble listing and agreeing on some of the characteristics we associate with childhood:
- Characteristics
- imagination
- experiences *
- adapting
- curiosity *
- dependence
- innocence*
- lessons
- self-centered *
- starting to make friends – social life with adults and peers
- freedom
- beginning of moral growth
- trouble
- care free
- birth – 11
- impressionable
- developing eating habits
- lack of responsibility *
- influence * (i.e., parenting)
- openness *
- asking a lot of questions (why)
- happy and sad
- games
- getting hurt
- inquisitive
Moving from this list to a shared definition, however, proves to be more difficult. Many characteristics we associate with childhood are not experienced by children everywhere; others can just as easily be associated with other periods of life. Some characteristics that were suggested as defining factors in class include:
- Definition
- birth – 11
- influence
- experiences *
- curiosity *
- innocence*
- self-centered *
- lack of responsibility *
- openness *
The difficulty in agreeing on a definition of childhood reveals the complexity of the concept and the complexity of language. The word “childhood” will mean something different depending on who is using it, for what purpose, at what time, in response to what prior statement, etc.
For our purposes, we can agree to several overlapping levels of “defining childhood.” At the biological level, we can consider childhood as the period before an individual is “mature” (i.e., capable of sexual reproduction.) This does not, of course, exhaust our definition of childhood. For many species, including humans, there is an additional level of social life that contributes to the definition of childhood. Related to biology, we can consider the changing social role as a defining factor. Finally, we must move even further to consider culture. On a cultural level, each society conceptualizes and structures childhood in specific historical ways. It is important to remeber that each of these levels is mutually constitutive.
