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Posts tagged ‘Childhood’

Feb 12

Bringing Up Baby

Tom Ashbrook’s show On Point challenges the notion that there are universals in parenting in last Tuesday’s episode, “Bringing Up Baby.” He interviewed Pamela Druckerman, author of Bringing up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting, and developmental psychologist, Jennifer Lansford.

The French focus on a balance between parenting and being adults. According to Druckerman, parents interfere less with their child’s experiences, believing that “kids and adults need space and privacy to cultivate their inner lives.”

Peter Stearns, in the chapter from Anxious Parents entitled “I’m Bored”, explains how much of modern American parenting is a response to children’s boredom and the guilt felt by parents to entertain them.

"It was so easy to think of food as a legitimate reward for being a child when a parent was too busy to offer more elaborate entertainments or felt guilty about not having enough time to spend." (p. 25) (click for source)

Druckerman’s discussion of children’s food made me reflect on my childhood. My poor mom must have had such a hard task pleasing my very picky sister and me. She likes to joke that always if one of us liked a meal, the other wouldn’t. Druckerman says that there are no kids foods in France. Kids inevitably won’t like every food they’re given, so parents just require them to taste the food. The American way, in contrast, is indulgence. Peter Stearns, in his book Anxious Parents, argues, “Tolerance of children’s eating habits… resulted from the real commitment to providing pleasure” (p. 25). In other words, eating is another way to entertain kids.

The perceived frailty of American children is discussed both by Druckerman and Stearn. Druckerman says that French children are more autonomous, and French parents are more comfortable setting boundaries.

Childrearing beliefs are strongly tied to the culture they are found in. I think Stearn’s observation of parents’ obsession with entertaining their children are reflected in our society’s own entertainment consumption habits among adults.

Feb 12

Star Wars

This past weekend I was able to relive a part of my childhood.  My brother and I were able to get tickets to go watch the re-release of Star Wars Episode I.  I must say that I was extremely excited to go watch the movie, but when I got there I realized that I was now the “old geeky guy” as I was surrounded by children and teenagers.  As I sat next to my older brother in the theater awaiting to watch Star Wars, I could not help but feel old.  My brother and I were reminiscing about the first time that we saw this movie and then we realized that it was almost fifteen years ago.  Back then my brother was sporting the typical 90’s gelled up hair and I was still watching Power Rangers.  I felt old when I realized this, I can’t imagine how  he felt now that he is almost 30.  Nevertheless, the movie was awesome and I was glad that my brother and I were able to relive our glory days once again.  On the ride back home, he and I were talking about how much publicity the movie had made, both good and bad.   Personally, when I first heard that they were going to re-release all of the movies I was ecstatic.  But of course there are those hardcore fans who were outraged when the movie came out the first time, I not being among them.  But that is the beauty about Star Wars, you will always have people fighting over which movie is the best, that George Lucas destroyed the originals, who Shot first, etc.  But no matter what side they choose, light or dark, every fan will still go watch the movies.

Feb 12

Goosebumps

A "Goosebumps" series favorite among readers.

 

The Goosebumps book series is a mammoth collection of children’s horror novels published by youth literature giant Scholastic and written by author R. L. Stine (real name Jovial Bob Stine) between 1992 and 1997. The series rocketed to popularity and inspired a few spin-off book series as well as a TV show that had me glued to the set in the same vein of programs like Are You Afraid of the Dark and So Weird. While the series is supposedly intended for middle school readers (or older readers in terms of some of the spin-offs), I seem to recall there being a certain pride and competition in comparing the number of Goosebumps books in your repertoire early in elementary school while cautiously avoiding the eyes of disapproving teachers.

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Feb 4

Why Can’t I Like the Pink One?

When I was a kindergartener, there was nothing cooler than the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers TV show. The Power Rangers, which debuted on Fox in 1993, were a gang of teenagers who defended planet Earth from invading aliens by using sweet martial arts moves and teamwork.

The six Power Rangers were defined their colors: there was Jason the red one, Kimberly who wore pink, Zack in black, Trini would be in yellow, Billy donned blue, and Tommy was the green Ranger. By displaying the Power Rangers in such a manor, the show’s producers easily enabled children to pick their favorite character based on their favorite color.

The 6 Original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

But there was a catch. If you were a boy in my kindergarten class, you could not like the Pink or the Yellow Ranger. Those two girls characters were reserved for girls to like only, although I do recall girls being allowed to like the boy Power Rangers without penalty.

This gender separation of selection of favorite character reminds me of Elizabeth Segel’s article, “‘As the Twig is Bent…’ Gender and Childhood Reading.” In the article, Segel describes children’s literature and the division of stories between boys’ and girls’ books, and also the readiness of girls to read about male characters and the unwillingness of boys to read about females (Segel, 73).

Laura McGrath also noticed the separation of the boy and girl Power Rangers, especially in the opening credits that would air before every episode. She describes, on her blog, how the male characters would be portrayed doing physical actions such as karate kicks or wrestling aliens, while the female Rangers were seen stretching and doing gymnastics.

I do not believe that the Power Rangers were sexist or gender separatists, rather it was the children themselves who created the separation. Every child was free to chose whichever Ranger they wanted to be their favorite, but it was the fear of being ridiculed in the classroom that restricted the choices.

Feb 3

G.I. Joe: Great American Heroine?

Modern model of G.I. Joe's "Action Army" figure.

At a young age boys are easily intrigued by action and aggression, two general characteristics that often can be considered when describing what it means to be a man. One toy during my own childhood that embodied both of these attributes was the G.I. Joe. In 1964 Hasbro began production of the G.I. Joe line, creating four different variations of the toy to represent the four branches of the military: Action Army, Action Navy, Action Pilot, Action Marine. The fact that boys didn’t want to be accused of playing with dolls, a very effeminate pastime for girls, Hasbro made it a point to call the toys “action figures”. Today they retail for about twenty dollars, but back then they were inexpensive. These action figures weren’t like the little green army men portrayed in the movie Toy Story which could be so easily destroyed by demented toy torturers like Sid. G.I. Joes were tough. Measuring a foot in height, these action figures were harder to break, allowing boys to be more “playful” with their toys. Not only were they tall in stature, they were also bulky—G.I. Joes sported big muscles in order to carry big guns and heavy equipment—appealing to children’s early notion of “bigger is better”. In class we discussed how boys who play with toys specifically targeted for male children could possibly affect their ability to absorb a female’s perspective later on in life. I personally disagree with this statement as it regards G.I. Joes because action figures are aesthetically very similar to dolls played with by young girls as well. G.I. Joe has even launched a female version of the action figure, G.I. Jane, to target girls.

Feb 3

Model Airplanes

I’ve been in love with airplanes from the moment I was born. The hospital in which I was born lies on the approach path for my city’s international airport. A straight line from the center of the runway’s north end to the hospital would cover about 2 miles. My mum says that after I was born I cried incessantly, and the only thing that would soothe me was the screech of aircraft as they passed overhead. My first word was “avión”, Spanish for airplane. With this in mind, it came as no surprise to my family when toy airplanes became the toys I cherished the most.

The Approach to Toncontin Airport. The hospital where I was born is about 2 miles behind where this picture was taken. Photo credit to William Decker.

I liked every kind and brand of model plane, but had a particular fondness (granted, obsession) for models of Honduras’s national carrier, SAHSA. Planes in a Honduran airline’s colors are not exactly in high demand, so there wasn’t anyone making the planes other than the airline itself. They had models custom made for them by a model maker in Miami, then used them as displays in their local offices and in travel agencies. My grandfather was a stakeholder in the airline, so armed with that and the help of my charming smile I saw to it that a considerable amount of these models found their way into my possession. Back then (early 90’s) the models should have been about 75 bucks a pop, but considering SAHSA went bankrupt in 1994 they are virtually priceless now.

Model SAHSA Boeing 727 courtesy of ModelBuffs.com

Gary Cross mentions in the first paragraph of page 37 in “Modern Children, Modern Toys” (course packet page 55) that

“Toys were both vehicles to introduce the ‘real world’ and fantasy objects shut off from that world in the child’s ‘secret garden’.”

This perfectly sums up my experiences with my model planes. My playtime consisted of this: I would set up two “airports” on opposite tables across a room. I envisioned the floor as an ocean, and both the tables represented islands. I would then proceed to micromanage each “airport” using my imagination and my recollection of airport infrastructure. Each plane would “land” at an airport, then would be given time to unload its passengers on “stairs” (Honduras didn’t have jet ways at the time); the cargo would be taken to the imaginary terminal (usually a box of cereal lying flat), the jet would be refueled, new passengers loaded, then it would take off once again with the other “island” as its destination. As Cross mentioned above, I was in my own world of sorts, however I tried to make that world as similar to the real world as possible. During my playtime I did more than just mimic the real world though; I began to understand it. I realized why airplanes used radios to communicate with a control tower one day when I attempted to land one of my jets while another was just lining up with the runway for takeoff. Something that was easy for me to fix there, but would likely end in a horrifying accident in the real world.  Through having a line of models waiting to unload their passengers as a result of me not balancing out the arrivals and departures, I realized why airlines’ timescales were so dependent on the efficiency of many moving parts.  Keeping track of how many routes a particular plane had flown that day taught me to add. Balancing the routes flown so that all my “fleet” participated equally taught me to multiply, divide, and subtract. To quote Cross, I was learning “how to be productive through purposive play” (course packet, page 55). The creation of my own little world in which I could move all the pieces without any repercussions ultimately allowed me the freedom to understand and thus prepare for the world ahead on my terms. At least the airline world…

Feb 3

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The “American Girl” Franchise

The original line of historical "American Girl" dolls.

When I was little, one of my favorite book series was the American Girl series. This collection of chapter books followed the lives of several young girls from different time periods and classes in American history – all hinging upon the common denominator of their titular national identity and exploring the story directly through the girls’ viewpoints. These books were created chiefly to advertise to children (more specifically girls) the line of character dolls upon which the American Girl company was originally built, in the same vein of such toy lines as Transformers and My Little Pony. Selling for upwards of a hundred dollars (and initially only available by mail-order) when you factor in toy accessories and doll dress-up, the American Girl dolls were expensive enough to require additional persuasion in the form of books, movies, and even games. After all,  parental resistance in the face of cost to satisfying a child’s preference for a particular character or story tends to wane the more enamored the child becomes with the pageantry of  a full product line.

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