200 Years; The Child In The American Family

from communication center the university of texas at austin this is two hundred years in the year nineteen seventy six the american republic celebrates its two hundredth anniversary as a part of the us bicentennial program at the university of texas at austin two hundred years explores the past present and future dynamics of history's longest living democratic society this as rex we're for two hundred years this week we will be talking about the child and the american family with lesser robert funny a professor of anthropology at the university of texas at austin randall my catherine fletcher and the university's law school and legal coordinator of the regional resource center on child abuse and neglect and katherine cooper assistant professor of home economics at ut austin last began by establishing what our society views as a significant issues surrounding the child in the american family today ms w judd it were more

parents had children because they want them so there i think is an increase in the awareness of the responsibilities and decisions in raising children it certainly seems that fathers are taking more important role in getting to know their children become involved in the raising their children and i think as part of that and part of the increased awareness in general that parenting is being seen more as a skill and less of a natural inborn ability of things that many more professionals such as really are available and end up aware of what parents are doing and sometimes that parents feel like an interest in activities to feel very natural in doing so you have to get a license to drive a car anyone can have children as taylor nd y think i would i would see the major issues that society is facing our children and maybe two camps one i would label the children of the opiate of the masses camp and that's the end of you it's

descended from children a private property to the more sophisticated state of the art now that at least parents have some inherent right to project their neuroses on her children and dead they should seek their immortality in their success for their children yeah i would i would offer label under an old hindu saying a child is a sage who was ignorant of his wisdom as a concept that the cellist is this more person who yes needs nurturing to stimulation in order to go but has an inherent right to autonomy information independents and the choice of values and lifestyle beyond his parents and even beyond the cultural boundaries of the society and you find any significant issues beyond the above well i don't know i'm inclined to look at the problems in terms of the attitudes of parents traditional ally i feel that perhaps now days more than ever parents are concerned with a negotiating mean the young shoals about lessons with your children so that they can turn them into the kinds of

friends other kinds of relatives that we're going to need in that old age which now seems an increasing probability for more and more of this era were no longer talking about a relationship between parent and child which ends up perhaps with the death of the parents a decade or so after the killing of the home but rather with a number of decades after that tallies approval home in which the current is going to have a long period of time to either remain in contact and find that kind of solace and anger and love which isn't that relationship or candy in it or i've become strangers to the two women raced census program is dedicated to her two hundredth anniversary about a little bit of historical perspective on the american family around seventeen hundred and seventy five or six and contrasted with the day like well i think certainly some things change and change to include the size of

a family and the kind of relationship that can develop between the parent child on in a very large families compare with the smart one in the larger families of our country's earlier years in the first place the child who was born was mayor michael might not survive the early childhood years because of the many diseases that affected both children and adults so one tended not to become as attached to one's young infants how many of course died and made i think that as the children grew older they entered economic as well as a fictional relationships and family and as we may not be aware of these tasty when the summer vacation member of our public schools was designed to free the children from the school response was to come home and work on farms now they're working mother that summer vacation is a curse to have to deal with the shippers to her children off to camp even things like interpreting runaway children in haiti hundreds when one went out west there wasn't the parent didn't feel to blame that was something that many young people did

and now parents are more likely to have a child guidance clinic and find out what they did wrong and congratulate their son or daughter from big adventure i think it's certainly true that the economic role of children has changed our vary greatly in society and a lot of that has to do with the change from cement and seventy six won ninety to ninety five percent of the population was employed a man well what would still be turned agricultural enterprise and when when work was oriented around the household and around the farm then children at a very early age they six seven years old could be economically productive to their parents in today's society most children are an economic liability in a large one until at least eighteen off until twenty five or thirty and so we see it and because an investment in terms of educational resources that are necessary now for children for chowdhury economically productive in the family and in the society are

much much different than they were back in an agrarian economy it our changes other life your partner related to the same range of palmer you just mentioned there is i feel that the isolation and the child from the unproductive activity of a father and not only me main mormons i suspect in the future from the lack of activities of the mother made the difficulty of sheltering much greater unfortunately even if we say that we change or agrarian to an industrial society even in the days a hundred years ago and people were doing political work in small towns it's still possible for either for children to spend time in around the year artificial i can visit their parents' during that they're doing to say your father was a blacksmith or carpenter or some other kind of arson have real content to the child that i think remain children the content of their parents' subsistence activities isn't all that totally lacking they have only secondhand information that about what their parents

do when we would save the so this changes brought about a much more important role of the parent in the crab meat that role in today's society it is what the cello last and last i think that there have been a mystery remaining in the growth of professional people who are all too eager to revive a period or more quo intact family and had a race the chant after world war one and more war to this stadium ushering and psychologists and social workers and school counselors whose who offered not necessarily prevented help but after things had gone wrong plenty of advice about how to do and of course many parents are facing a chilling day care settings which by the way bob ney be locating factory or our work settings but of course aren't always so i think that parents have around the many opportunities to get advice and to get help unfortunately the behavioral

science and sociology anthropology psychology changed him i'm so frequently about what is the appropriate way of raising children but many parents find themselves very confused whether they should be reinforced and wrists thinking reasoning own and they can force and they can find advice on every point of view and so find ourselves off alone in making a choice to be part of that the real problem that parents face now and i recognize it as a very real problem coping particularly with adolescents or the post twenty two and twenty five year old alison see who may in some way still be connected to their parents is is one they can be are very well we made it with historical perspective and that is that when children as captain said left their home at age fourteen fifteen and went to the front here or you got a job on their own could be could be trained as ours is on in the crowd said that kind of age paxton feel the responsibility and was no need to prolong the kinds of of

control and what some might turn to subjugate should of of children who had very adult capacities in many ways but yet are now recognized by the law and treated by law virtually the same as two year old resentments are treated along in new knowledge wisdom makes no differentiation the most part the twenty two year olds in seventeen years old seventeen year old miners are minors for the purpose of the law except few circumstances that as medical emancipation where miners now or locked some kinds of overall medical treatment rights in certain privileges like driving maybe ghana at age fifteen or sixteen as i think there is a very serious problem and i don't know whether the law was so different data sets from considering a major which children moved into a relatively independent position to raise writing for their own living i think you're one thing though they're spending from that sort of interesting well what's going on now is that it i feel it

given the recession and given me the problems that the economy is facing in that we can see in the future given the rising cost of energy and so on the american middle class is i'm going to be richer but perhaps a little bit for that used to be in the palms of maintain their standard of living comparable to that which we've enjoyed in the past or have come to expect they deal with more difficult and i hear for instance about more parents whose children after they get to college instead of going away and relishing independent household are coming back home again to live once again where it's less expensive than having our apartment and where they can earn a living at sharon the expenses of the house or some degree path all we are nine states that some years ago to in addition the one you're talking about when the french year veteran of moving off at fourteen one thing but there are also many families where children continue to live united era married in large cities in the united states with their families in the family home which was big enough to take care of all of the parents i think that that ad that there's

going be a reevaluation of some of the activities in the whole anastasio of their importance because now and things you look at wei american income levels are calculated the productivity of the household wealth in terms of the value of the work which the woman's leaders in the household but also on which the mandate is really calculated it is a ridiculous state of affairs because it gives a false impression as to the value of our own efforts and i think the fact that many men now are beginning to think that maybe it's important to learn how to fix their own cars to to be a little bit more clever wood carpentry about how stupid they have they can afford for professional to come and do this work oh interesting garden at all the harleys eighty percent of the hair of the total number of people engaged in harboring the gardening and that rating i think people are looking for ways of contributing to their family support in the fashion and at the iraqis that

kids can be involved with and can learn about from their parents and i think this is going to be and we see amongst their sixties the ticket through who began to denounce bitter rivals kind of artwork and handicrafts and thought maybe get together in a pattern of the household than to become more important than your productivity in which the child and the parents are going to be new to involve i think i disagree with that going back to the question you put the responsibility of parents and the challenges of parents faced with their children today i were to look back in historical perspective and how industrialization i think was a major factor in converting children into what i call the opiate of the masses that is that as people lost touch with with the work that they were doing and they were putting a factory and they weren't alienated from that work that work product with no longer their own and it became a piece of factory themselves are pretty strong nod on the assembly line

their children and became their fulfillment the idea that the child would would make would succeed in those ways and have those things and justify their lives in game for them those things that they were not going to be able to help themselves i think that there are banners put it a tension between parents and children that includes can be that is virtually impossible to resolve until parents begin to understand that they are not responsible for and then some alternate sense another trial does not reflect upon their self worth the child reflects on his own word berber reflects on his own words and the importance that we've given to having their children and children achieving certain ways and my son the doctor my phone the lawyer i think creative entrepreneur and the that they're not in the will get our night i think of that arm whiskey of cyclical phenomenon now with without an economic recession or mini depression upon us and brings children back to the home for its economic security but i think again we're going to see the same phenomenon

that was on the sixties when we get back and an economic heal and increasingly children are more information they i had an earlier age as they mature mentally mean if our hangar where we were at that age as far as knowing how the world works and knowing what's going on and being able to manipulate concepts in a distraction i think they're going to be increasingly independent integrated she didn't really hear about the ability of children to understand the world cup it intellectually and more complicated way and we've found children and peter temple about election or about going to the keratin that china may have more label and more ideas but i think you're going to read them for example president kennedy reflects a faint pattern of thinking that shouldn't have have always had a job at which it looks like they're being worth of ticket been factored in it is the conduct that and now they're going to think about and the label

that he will return to think of each room only concrete what aged children you talking about you know talking about simple cognitive development you would expect increased information necessarily decreased the dea agent with the town with a will to make abstractions and intellectual life in certain ways and handed the child did a masculine some and some age on a canopy eyes yea for hart this cognitive model of how the human mind about you would think that once the child a game that hbo he can or fifteen which of them would be much more able to look in his world and understand that given that he had much more information through television radio books the media all kinds of things that children exposed to in much greater frequency then i'm not sure they never were exposed to before and wind and can acquire them on around them i think that

i would i would wager that if we could talk to the children of two hundred years ago today we might have more information about how animals are born how to plant corn own inability information about one of the children that i recently taught and impractical and the vietnam show sam then they have different factor that different domain different areas but i think the challenge of reading ability it's about the same generation to generation but i think we should do anything from different points of view the question of what about our reading about things or they're actually involved with directly through their own experience and the context of work sharing responsibility for various kinds of tasks in around the house for months that whatever it may be are they are mainly interested in the thing the guinness book of records which can get it like to collect back and think about work but they can learn an awful lot in terms of being involved in our

recovery through the activities which is i think you're the characteristic context of child rearing we've received information from research in rural areas around the world in hungary and in norway that makes it would make me feel optimistic about the trend that you describe poppa father and now they're getting into carpentry and planning with their children and garden twelve namely that children who are involved actively involved in on the profits and around where they are nor are enduring appear to develop intellectually more rapidly than the shoulder to get back and watch television or play it at the american comedy coming and the group more involved in the prosecutor in my left hand and i could get to it if not why i think that i'm not my personal opinion is that television is probably the worst thing ever happened childhood is that eating grains a kind of passivity a kind of acceptance of what's going on around you without those

patients but i think that the trend in i hope it is a trend although the statistics on stills see on on how many hours too much television and it's incredible to me a child watching more television on the sixteen that he spends in school for instance you know it's not something that i dont i don't see the positive part of his upbringing but i'm in which are desperate to stay in the household and begins to do i interact with his parents didn't have much more active ethan life rather than the path of one television are allowed that might that might argue for the child at sixteen or eighteen feel much more independent and reduce that on his own away from his family and not only not mean that the parent or some other television like subjugate or two he painted control and telling what doing were to go out of thinking all kinds of things that are made may come from a path of state well i think that there were reportedly also it also encourages her to

grant to their child inventor of that perfect which after all of the whole protective covering my mission when a child and when the child making contributions one i don't care how small a given how limited going to engage or her age of that child in them not any longer that talent making making an ever in a comic enterprise and achieve by that means that if it's normal if they're writing about parenting child rearing thirty four in terms of modifying that very important and i will i would certainly agree with you and i think that that that turned the question on earth on its head which is in a very difficult child the day our nation you know two hundred years ago at age ten or twelve you can get up there with that and you can be part of economic productivity you could milk the cows and you can do those things than walking back in love the house for breakfast that seventy am hoping that kerry the pale know he really important that house or one of the general time for

many brings home with his briefcase full of papers on the authentic aka night and doesn't want to wrestle on the floor they're fine here to take time to do a lot of things around the house even have them in this in terms of middle class which he didn't think he had time to do before because now instead of costing you a five dollars in on a cost fifteen dollars an hour whatever the relative values are involved it's going to be a lot of people who used to make them income which vaught allow them to leave himself to all kinds of new and cool it that much more attractive we knew the going to the future now of that production would you like to go out on a limb a bit farther and they would weave not just played in the family for the next hundred years i think we could predict if there is relief wider variety of family form certainly are all the familiar with one parent family by many

young people middle aged people deciding to pull their first with a family i know of gamble of a group of young mothers to be divided that they would like to use some of their income to employ an artist and in one case speaking woman so that their children can have an extended great victory beyond that war captain of people who do not want to be a parent that all not because they are guaranteed fuel has turned to do everything with their daughter year's pilot project a greater variety of newly formed i would agree with that prediction and i think that may very well happen is that the child can be it can be given the resources to be a consumer of those items on directly that now that child has a fish and they formed by his parents are by the government specifically i think in education are we're going to move towards the parents initially hopefully sometime the children being given what they call an

education about her own education and check that they can spend in any school they work rather than having one public school system that everybody has to go to village of course you can afford to buy your way out into traveler's family should be able to purchase whatever school they want then we might we might have one vote with their dollars we might have schools that are more than through with what people want them to be well i'm not a lawyer but maybe one little particular would make a lot more a lot of college educated parents are going through their juvenile good college till i'm going to be too much then beyond recognition a lot more weight than being verified in life and getting to be a degree of the family and will that look from the past on into the future we're going to oppose this week's discussion about the child in the american family our panelists have included robert barney a professor of anthropology at the university of texas at austin lecturer in the university's law school and legal coordinator of the

original resource center on child abuse and neglect and katherine cooper assistant professor of home economics at ut austin says rex we're for two hundred years two hundred years as part of the united states bicentennial program at the university of texas austin is a continuing series of weekly conversations about the past present and future dynamics of history's longest living democratic society two hundred years is produced by katie by communication for all the university of texas at austin this is along our radio network