I recently read in the Economist that parenting is a
relatively recent concept. That may sound odd given that children have been
around since the beginning of time. But child rearing as we know it today would
be viewed as a bit odd compared to how things were done throughout history
prior to the Industrial Revolution. Childhood was considerably more “nasty,
brutish and short”. In fact at that time the average age of a person entering
the workforce was between 11 and 12 years of age. The word parent didn’t become
a verb until the late 1950s. Fortunately all this points to the fact that we
have evolved in a positive direction, at least in this area. As Viviana
Zelizer, a sociologist at Princeton puts it, we have moved to “the economically
useless but emotionally priceless child”.
Speaking of my economically useless children, they had a
relatively good Oct.-Nov. I refrain from saying autumn since it is not autumn
in the southern hemisphere. It’s not really spring either since spring doesn’t
really exist here. In fact this time of year is generally referred to as the “short
rains” season. This is because: a) it rains, b) the rain normally doesn’t last
very long and c) it’s a period only about two months long. But I’ll still just
refer to it uninterestingly as Oct.-Nov.
During this time the kiddos we’re able to see a play at the
national theater, attend thousands of birthday parties, participate in a “Halloween”
thing put on in our building, and numerous other activities. Clearly we have
moved on from nasty and brutish (a point they might argue on occasion,
particularly when it’s bedtime).
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