Childhood - Grandparents - Motherhood/Fatherhood (Week 24)

Question 1

Interactionists view of childhood

Socially constructed or biologically based?

Answer 1

• Interactionists argue that society makes up our idea of childhood
• Childhood is dependent on time and culture you are in
• Types of acceptable behaviour, length and how children should be treated are all evidence of this.

Question 2

Functionalists view of childhood

Socially constructed or biologically based?

Answer 2

• Functionalists argue that childhood should be explained in a biological sense
• Children have and will always will be passive

Question 3

Pre-industrial children

Answer 3

• The pre-industrial child was an economic asset
• Children worked in factories, mines and mills.

Question 4

Industrialisation and the change in childhood - Mid 19th century

Answer 4

• Early industrialisation changed family structure.
• Middle classes emerged
• Growth in marital and parental love
• Decline in infant mortality
• Mid 19th century saw a change in social attitudes towards children
• Children were excluded from working in mines, factories and mills. They were seen as dangerous places for children to work.
• Many were killed or injured in the workplace
• Working class families resisted this move as it impacted family income. But this didn;t stop the legislation changing.

Question 5

Childhood - Late 19th century

Answer 5

By this time there were new concerns reguarding children such as:
* Juvenile delinquency
* Begging
* Child prostitution
* Children on the streets
* Bad treatment
* Child abuse

Question 6

Fletcher - Intro of laws

Answer 6

• Indroduction of laws stopped children being treated as adults
• Factory Acts - prevented children from a certain age working.
• Education Acts - ensured children up to a certain age were educated.

Question 7

Aries - Childhood in medievel Europe

Answer 7

• Aries says that childhood didn’t exist in medieval Europe
• He used diaries, letters, paintings, other documents of the time to emphasis this
• Children were depicted as little adults, ivolved in adult activities (sexual activity, fighting, work)
• Childhood today is a social invention
• Childhood did not exist in pre-industrial society
• Toys and games did not exist
• There was less emotional attachment due to high mortality rates.

Question 8

Post-industrial childhood (20th century)

Answer 8

The 20th century saw a range of changes that led to families becoming more child centred.
* Age of sexual consent raised to 16
* Emergence of child-centred society
* Improved standards of living, welfare and nutrition
* Lower infant mortality rate
* More expensive to have children
* Increased availability/quality of contraception
* Fewer children
* More investment in children emotionally and financially
* Focus now on socialisation and protection

Question 9

State protection of children - Social policies

Answer 9

• Children’s Act 1989
• Social services/ Social workers
• Education as a source of secondary socialisation
• Child benefit – economic care
• Children’s tax credits
• Child Support Act 1991 - Protects welfare of the child during marital breakdown
  and children become the main concern during divorce.
• Welfare of children is the priority when courts make decisions about them.
• The concept of parental responsibility has replaced that of parental rights
• Local authorities are charged with duties to identify children in need
  and to safeguard and promote their welfare.

Question 10

Cultural differences in childhood - examples

Answer 10

Turnbull (The Mountain People): children could survive even when abandoned
Firth (Tikopia Island Tribe): carried out dangerous tasks when they/adults felt they were ready.
* Recent studies in South America, Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa have revealed a diverse range of child-parent relationships.

Question 11

Functionalist and New Right View on childhood

Answer 11

• Conventional
• Children are vulnerable
• Children are at threat from alternative family structures and the media
• At threat from adult society
• Advocate the traditional nuclear family as the right family for bringing up children.
• Blames working and single mothers for problems with children

Question 12

Melanie Philips - Why cultural parenting has broken down

Answer 12

Culture of parenting has broken down because of:
* Liberal ideals
* Too many rights given to children
* Lack of healthy respect for parents by children
* Inability of parents to effectively sanction (smacking)
* She highlights the power of the media and peer groups on children.
* Younger children are being sexualized through music, magazines, films etc.

Question 13

Differing views of children

Answer 13

1) Conventional approaches: assume children are passive and need protecting.
2) New Right/Functionalists: see children as ‘empty vessels’ and that parenting is a one way process.
3) Morrow (1998): believes that children are constructive and reflective contibutors to family life. He says that children want to contribute to family life but not to make decisions.

Question 14

The decline of childhood

Lee

Answer 14

Lee – 20th century notion of childhood was that of unstable and incomplete humans.
Move to 21st century – we are no longer complete when we reach adulthood, still sense of uncertainty
* Adults are becoming more like children
* Children have increased rights – children have more say over what happens to them now than in the past and have more power within the family.

Question 15

Postman - Childhood disappearing

Answer 15

• Notion of childhood has disappeared.
• Childhood can only occur if they are separated from adults.
• Merging of roles, children have rights and access to same levels of media.
• Boundaries have blurred.

Question 16

Childhood is Toxic - Sue Palmer

Answer 16

Sue Palmer argues that childhood has become toxic in a range of ways:
* Lack of opportunity to learn through play
* Being restricted to the home due to fears for their children’s safety
* Too much testing at school
* Exposure to violence through video games and TV

Question 17

Children as consumers - Robertson (2001)

Answer 17

Robertson (2001) suggests that a further factor in the disappearance of childhood is that children are consumers.
* Consuming things that were previously just for adults (mobile phones).
* Advertisers target ‘children’s markets’ and has led to a consumer culture more like the adult world

Question 18

Childhood is still here

Lee + Buckingham

Answer 18

• Some say that childhood is a long way from disappearing.
• They are now a major economic force – clothes, toys, food etc
  **Buckingham **– children have a major say on what is produced and purchased
  **Lee **– Childhood is not disappearing but becoming more complex and ambiguous
• Although they have a say in what they want, they are still dependent on parents purchasing power

Question 19

Postmodern & Social Constructionist views

Answer 19

• Postmodernists say that whilst children are consumers of products, they also shape those products.
• Instead of being passive receivers of adult culture, they develop sophisticated childhood cultures.
• They are exposed to a wider range of richer experiences than children of the past.
• This applies to other age groups as well.
  eg. Teenagers are characterised as experiencing pressures and stresses due to puberty.
• In some cultures there is not a transition period from childhood to adulthood

Question 20

Ageing population - Idea of sandwich generation

Answer 20

• Life expectancy has increased = more likely that several generations will be alive at the same time.
• The birth rate has fallen = there is an ageing population (more older people)
• There is an increased dependency ratio (there are more retired, economically inactive people relying on the economically active)
• Older people may rely on their adult children for support. The burden of caring often falls on the woman.
  Sandwich generation = adults who looks after both their dependent parents and their own dependent children

Question 21

Grandparents as a childcare resource

Smallwood & Wilson

Answer 21

• Improved health + increase in life expectancy means many grandparents are a valuable source of support, particularly in childcare.
• Research in the UK has found that 30% of UK families depend on grandparents for childcare. This increases to 50% for single parents.
• Smallwood & Wilson argues that this has led to modifications in the family structure.
• There are few classic extended families but modified extended family networks are important.
• Work pressures leave mothers with less time for childcare so it falls on grandparents to provide it.

Question 22

Grandparents - financial, social, emotional support

Answer 22

• Grandparents often provide financial support
• Grandchildren rely on them for social and emotional support

Question 23

Grandparents - Negotiation of roles

Answer 23

• The roles and relationships within the family are open to negotiation.
• Negotiation can involve grandparents resisting the belief by their children that they can be taken for granted as childminders whenever required.
• Like childhood, old age is socially constructed.
• Different societies have different ideas about what old age means and when it starts.
• There are different retirement ages and different interpretations of the social position of the elderly.

Question 24

Cross cultural comparisons - Grandparents

Answer 24

• There are differences are between traditional & modern societies.
• There are differences within these categories too.
  eg. Modern societies (UK or USA) show differences in the relationship between older people and other age groups.
• In some traditional societies, older people gain increased status as patriarchs or matriarchs, valued for their knowledge and experience.
• In Western society, age is associated with a diminished identity – old people are less useful and less powerful. Old age is associated with decline, withdrawal and loneliness.

Question 25

Older people - New status

Answer 25

* Longer life expectancies + more wealthy lifestyles have contributed to the reinvention of elderly identities. * We can now make distinctions between old and very old, recognise changing patterns of consumption/leisure and produce different interpretations of the meaning of ‘being old’. * **Victor** suggested that the status of older people depends on a number of factors; 1. The nature of social organisation – in wandering nomadic societies where elderly are considered a problem when they are no longer able to follow the lifestyle. 2. In more settled societies – the knowledge and skills of older people is considered valuable to the family group or society as a whole.

Question 26

Kagan - Older people study

Answer 26

* In Kagan’s study of a Columbian village, older people remained socially and economically active as far as physically possible. * She says that they were seen as valued and respected members of their communities. * The status of older people is higher in societies that value the knowledge and skills they possess. eg. In many Native American cultures, older men are valued for their skills of leadership and their intimate knowledge of the community’s tales of the past and ceremony.

Question 27

Older people - Status in Europe and America

Answer 27

In Europe and America, older people who have control over economic resources also have higher status. The key to social status, therefore, is control over valued social and economic resources

Question 28

Class affecting the experiences of children in the family | Hecht and Bourdieu

Answer 28

* **Hecht** makes the distinction between the nurtured and the nurturing child. **Nurtured **– children of the wealthy, childhood is a time they are looked after. **Nurturing child** – offspring of the poor, whose childhood is usually spent looking after others; parents, grandparents, siblings. * Some, upper class children attend boarding schools which gives them a very different experience of childhood from their working and middle class peers. * **Bourdieu** - the economic inequality, gives a range of cultural advantages based on social capital. * Historically, middle/upper class families were more child-centred (more family resources and effort invested in a child’s physical/ social development.) * Cultural capital consists of non-economic resources (knowledge, skills) that allow middle class children to be successfull in education. * Working class childhood is focused on the ‘here and now’ and immediate rewards eg. leaving school for work * Middle class childhood is based on putting off rewards (delaying gratification) – staying in education to get qualifications that lead to a professional career.

Question 29

Gender affecting the experiences of children in the family

Answer 29

Gender socialisation = different experiences of childhood for boys and girls. * Parents often assume boys are psychologically & emotionally different from girls so treat them differently. * **Will et al (1976)** demonstrated this by observing young mothers interacting with a baby called Beth. * They offered her a doll to play with, used words like ‘sweet’ to describe her. * When introduced to a similar baby called Adam, they offered him a train and he received fewer smiles. * However, Beth and Adam were actually the same child just dressed in different coloured clothes but they were treated quite differently.

Question 30

Canalisation - gender affecting childhood experiences in the family

Answer 30

* Parents consciously & sub-consciously threat their children in different ways by associating different objects, behaviours and expectations with different genders. * Toys are used to reinforce gender ideas * Girls behaviour outside the home is also controlled more. * **Martin & Rubie (2004)** suggest that children are ‘gender detectives’. They search for clues about gender-appropriate behaviour from primary sources (parents, peers) and secondary sources eg. media. * They also seek to discover ‘why boy and girls differ’. * A common interest in cars, football or rap music (boys) or fashion, cosmetics and shopping (girls) creates gender bonds and reinforces identity barriers. * Peer pressure can be an important influence on an individual’s experience of childhood.

Question 31

Ethnicity affecting childhood experiences within the family

Answer 31

* Different ethnic groups have their own sense of history, tradition and custom. * These differences translate to how childhood is constructed. * In modern industrial societies - childhood has extended to a later age. This has resulted in categories such as ‘teenager’ for late childhood. * Ethnic groups have different ideas about how their children should eat, speak and dress. * **Brannen & Oakley (1994)** found that Asian parents place greater restrictions on their children’s freedom of movement, particularly with their daughters, than British parents.

Question 32

Changes in Motherhood

Answer 32

* Mothers are expected to be devoted to their children (have a mothering instinct) * motherhood is a social construction - society decides what a mother should be * In some societies, it is not taken for granted that the biological mother will raise the child – grandparents or other close kin may be involved.

Question 33

Motherhood in the Uk

Answer 33

The concept of motherhood has been influenced by changes in patterns of child-bearing; * A decline in birth rates: 30 births per 1000 people (1900) - 10 in 2010 * A decline in family size: from an average of 3 to 1.6 children. * An increase in the average age women have their first child * The smaller number of children has led to more child-centredness, more expectations for mothers to be ‘good mothers’, spending lots of time/energy with their children. * Working mothers are criticised for going against this role and face great difficulty in meeting the demands of the two roles.

Question 34

Childcare

Answer 34

* Many women do work, despite the debate over whether or not mothers of pre-school age children should stay at home. * Childcare can be expensive * Care by a relative or a childminder * A nanny – common in upper/middle class families * Nurseries and nursery schools. * Britain has less childcare provision than most European countries * very few companies have workplace nurseries.

Question 35

Changes in Fatherhood

Answer 35

* The role of men in family life has changed significantly in recent years for a range of reasons: 1. Decline of manufacturing industry > causing male unemployment 2. Importance of men within families is questioned > more women can support families alone 3. Abuse of women and children by men has become more publicised & condemned 4. Feminism has questioned traditional ideas about masculinity

Question 36

The 'New' Man

Answer 36

* In the 1980s in the media ‘the new man’ was supposedly anti-sexist, gentle, sensitive, involved in bringing up children. * Many people approve the new man but many couples find it hard to put into practice. * More fathers are playing a more active part in the emotional side of child-rearing and spending more time with their children. * Bringing up children is expensive and this often leads to men working long hours and limits time with children.