When I was raising my children, there was a standard trend to treat children as individuals. It was a part of the growing psychology of the day. It was the trend.
Every generation, every social movement has its experts such as, Benjamin Spock, James Dobson, PhD. or Robert Myers, PhD. The cultural meme flows as if it were a living thing. Maybe it is. Maybe instead of flowing, it vibrates as the music of the generation beats through our bones. Pulsating like the jazz of the 1920’s or the hip thrusting music of Elvis in the 1950’s. Once children were born to a family as if they were slaves. The more children in a family, the more wealthy you were. Now there are countries that are needing families to procreate, such as Denmark.
Have children changed? No. Babies still form the same way as before. They cry when their hungry or tired. They grow up and develop just about the same as they have for 100,000 years or so. So what’s the deal? Why do we fuss so much about pre-K and special formulas?
There are two things that impress me the most in mankind’s progress. The first is the lowering of disease and mortality, which includes childbirth. Think of how precarious it was for a woman to give birth even just a hundred to two hundred years ago. The second is the increase in brain size which happened a lot further back. And there are certain things that we have learned that have made an enormous impact, such as the need for touching and talking to your child. And how important it is to their neural growth. This isn’t instinctual in mothers by the way. These are things that are taught from one mother to another.
Babies are still babies, but as parents I think we’ve come a long way. As a society and as humans we have a lot further still to go. Someday we might discover the virus that spreads this disease of war and be able to immunize our children at birth.
Word of mouse – Seth Godin
Every fast-growing social movement, non-profit and brand of the last decade has grown because people have chosen to talk.
Not shelving allowances, coupons, A/B testing, Super Bowl ads, dancing tube men or Formula One sponsorships. Each can be a productive tool, but at the heart of real growth is a simple idea:
People decide to tell other people.
Start with that.
janetkwest.com 
[…] A Child is Always a Child […]
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Thank you very much for your contemplative post. My parents hav mentioned DrSpock who was the big guru when I was a child. My Dad was brought up by theJesuits and encouraged independent thought. However, I think he regretted that when we hit the teenage years.
I have concerns about the heavy use of computer games and screens by the current generation of kids but it’s hard to avoid. There are times when I need some peace or to get something done and they’re like a drug. Fighting them requires a conscious, active campaign, which is hard to maintain long term if you want to get things done yourself.
xx Rowena
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Interesting regarding your dad. I don’t know much about what they teach. I’ll have to learn more about that. I have to remind myself to turn off the tv since it’s my addiction. I agree, games and computers can be quite the drug. Even researching important information can lead me down a rabbit hole that never seems to end. 🙂 Thanks for stopping by!
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