The Great Childhood Heist
The institution of childhood has never remained static throughout history. Before the Great Depression, it was doubtful that the premise of childhood even existed, except perhaps in only the wealthiest of families. Children were used primarily for labor, until Franklin D. Roosevelt enacted labor laws to ensure that adults were given jobs over youths. Yet, even in the past three-quarters of a century it has changed dramatically, and Michael Chabon captures this evolution in his memoir Manhood for Amateurs. There is a heavy focus on retrospection at his personal journey through life, and he recognizes that fundamental characteristics of his own childhood have disappeared from that of his children?s. Examining contemporary childhood, it has become quite clear that shifts in American culture have had a profound effect on this vital period of development, and concern for the future of the children who have matured in this era is quite valid.
Where there once stood endless nature, and expanse of infinite potential, now stands the sprawl of American excess. The reasons for this sprawl, the vast corruption of our countryside, are widely debated and not entirely clear - could it be the proliferation of the automobile? Or degrading conditions in cities? Or perhaps Mr. Thoreau and the Transcendentalists had a hand in the matter. Either way, middle class has been sold an idealized image of a tranquil existence surrounded by natural beauty, only to realize they?re been sold a lie and the very natural beauty they crave was destroyed by their quest to find it. Increasingly banal communities, calculated environments, and depressingly stagnant daily experiences formulate a certain anonymity to the subdivisions of America - when every house looks the same, it?s impossible to identify the individuals residing within. In Levittown, New Jersey, one of the original planned suburbs, homeowners suffered from a plague of homogeneity as the ?conformity of the houses was broken up only by their exterior colors, the choices of which were limited as well? (Knight). This overbearing level of sameness motivated people to act a certain way, as actors in a play, to fit within the idealized constraints of suburban society, as Frank and April Wheeler in Richard Yates?s Revolutionary Road are ?constantly watching themselves, gauging their lives against ideals from the movies or the newspapers? (O?Nan). With this dominating level of uniformity and paramount motivation to achieve ultimate acceptance, how can a healthy neighborhood form? When Chabon moved to Berkeley, California, to a suburban street kindred to every other planned community throughout America, he found out that ?the family next door included a nine-year-old girl; in the house two doors down the other way, there was a nine-year-old boy, her exact contemporary and, like her, a lifelong resident of the street. They had never met? (Chabon 64). The very aspect that defines a neighborhood - the relationships between neighbors - is destroyed because each fa?ade masks the true nature of the people who maintain it, indistinguishable from the rest of the population, and vacant for the terrors of parental imaginations to inhabit.
The suburbs had another function: to furnish the idea of a safe, wholesome family experience. When everyone owns their little piece of nature, a backyard, perceived dangers of reality are eradicated. Fenced in like chickens in a coop, the little tikes are insulated from the cancers of reality. Now, that instinct to protect children has been perverted to the point where there aren?t any spaces ?where kids can unmediatedly be kids, without the requisite caregiver security details and OSHA-compliant play spaces? (Kamp). Today?s parenting inhibits exploration and imagination, and Chabon complains about the ?increasingly organized, chaperoned nature of childhood in modern, middle-class America? that proliferated as Americans became increasingly aware of the horrors facing children (Kakutani 1). Chabon?s greatest grievance is that modern suburban culture is stifling childhood imagination, one of the facets by which he himself learned about the nature of the world around him. He recalls embarking on adventures through his quaint Maryland neighborhood, something he called the ?Wilderness of Childhood? (Chabon 60). Coming from a time in which his parents gave him an ?incredible degree of freedom?to adventure,? he can?t help but notice the ?very grave, very significant shift in our idea of childhood? that?s happened since (Chabon 63). Instead of encouraging children to set out on adventures in whatever alternate reality they can conjure, parents bring kids to ?Chuck E. Cheese, the Jungle, the Discovery Zone: jolly internment centers mapped and planned by adults with no blank spots aside from doors marked staff only? (Chabon 64). Parents today, afraid of the possible threats to their children?s well-being, would never allow their child out to romp on their own, free to imagine whatever they please - they might bump their knee.
So it is clear that children suffer a deprivation of freedom, yet even if given total reign, they would probably be stymied by the vast possibility that awaited them. This generation of kids is starkly different from those that grew up and ?on summer mornings?disappeared into neighborhoods - kid enchantment, emerging only briefly for lunch before plunging back into (their) conspiracies. (They) had no play dates. It was assumed (they?d) return before dinner - safely? (Berg). Parents have entirely revoked liberty from children, and they ?feel the need to be all over their kids? lives? (Berg). As more kids participate in youth sports league, the more obvious it becomes that these leagues have ?less to do with children?s fun than parents? gratification. Play has become serious business. As childhood disappears, so does a child?s idea of play? (Berg). Chabon echoes this sentiment - it dawns upon him that nearly everything his children play with is developed by adults. His case in point: Legos. When he built with Lego bricks, he followed no directions and kits contained ?squares and rectangles?(in) six colors? (Chabon 51). Now, his kids play with a ?vast bestiary of hybrid pieces? and follow step by step guides to create ?trademarked, conglomerate-owned, pre-imagined environments? (Chabon 51, 54). The fantasies of children, which are inspired by popular culture, have been handicapped by the perpetually released ??family movie? - the latest computer-generated piece of animated crap? (Chabon 75). Where the open-ended and exploratory nature of Star Trek and Planet of the Apes had influenced Chabon as a child, movies are now ?like unctuous butlers of the imagination, ready to serve every need or desire as it arises; they don?t leave anything implied, unstated, incomplete? (Chabon 81). They don?t inspire children to congregate and create their own games based on these suggestive realities; instead, they completely fulfill any curiosity a child might have. With no need to explore, children don?t bother trying to imagine what might happen, and stop asking, ?What if??? Where suburbs try to satisfy every need a man might have, from his own little plot of grass to his own little mortgaged castle, they?re supplemented by a relentless supply of distractions and arbitrary games to put the annoying kid into a CGI-induced stupor.
What is happening to the children? What will happen to them when they grow up? No longer are they wondering and wandering, imagining and crafting the most well-laid plans for their todays, let alone their futures. What kid would want to be an astronaut, when everyone knows that an investment banker will make more money? Hyper-sensitive parents refuse to let children out of their sight, to go and explore the boundaries of their world, due to their fear of pedophiles hidden in those gingerbread homes and perfectly manicured lawns, of crazed hooligans speeding down their perfectly cemented cul-de-sacs. The first generation of children to grow up in this carefully regulated are now teenagers, and somehow, it is no surprise that the underage drinking problem has reached all-time highs. Perhaps they?re subconsciously reacting to the childhood instinct to explore what isn?t allowed, or perhaps the complete obliteration of childhood by their parents makes them think that they ought to be treated as adults. What lessons are children being taught if everything in their environment is manipulated to be safe, predictable, and familiar? Will they lose all motivation to push the envelope of human potential, instead content with the status quo, to remain sedentary at their computer screens? At that rate, they?ll all grow up to be Frank Wheelers, full of first-rate ambition without an accomplishment to their name, "hardly ever entertaining a doubt of (their) own exceptional merit." Instead of focusing on totally irrational fears of exotic diseases and vile human predators, parents ought to be worried about the consequences of substituting Pixar movies for adventure stories and Wii for physical exercise.
Chabon, Michael
Manhood for Amateurs
Chabon, Michael
Wilderness of Childhood
Kamp, David
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/books/review/Kamp-t.html
Kakutani, Michiko
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/books/19chabon.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print
O?Nan, Stewart
http://bostonreview.net/BR24.5/onan.html
Knight, Greg
http://www.patioculture.net/paper.html
Berg, Steve
http://www.hbci.com/~wenonah/new/childhod.htm
