Ideas: Breaking the Walled Garden of Childhood

Ideas: Breaking the Walled Garden of Childhood

David D. Friedman writes:

"One exception used to be the Society for Creative Anachronism, a historical recreation organization that I have been involved with for a very long time. I was taught to use a sewing machine by a twelve year old girl; a few years later she was the moving spirit behind a puppet theater. But that has gradually changed. More and more over the years, children who come to SCA events are expected, not to help set up the hall or cook the dinner or run the event, but to attend 'children's activities.'

"What set off this post was the discovery that at the Pennsic War, the SCA's largest gathering, a two week long camping event with something over ten thousand people and a Pennsic University with about a thousand classes (some of which I teach), there is now a new rule. Nobody under eighteen can attend a class unless accompanied by parent or legal guardian. When I complained to one of the people responsible, I was assured that they had made special provision to allow children to attend children's classes.

"I have long held that there are two fundamental views of children: That they are pets who can talk, or that they are small people who do not yet know very much. The wrong one is winning."

(In linking to this, I need to say that I disagree with his nonchalant attitude toward early exposure to internet pornography and find his barnyard analogy inadequate. There is a world of difference between two bovines un-self-consciously engaged in the reproductive act and videos of human sexual interaction organized to arouse a jaded consumer. The medium itself is a message that we don't want children -- or anyone -- to take to heart.)