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Childhoods: past, present and future?

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A few days ago Mrs Mousey asked for tips about English songs for children.

That got me thinking: when does childhood end these days? As regards their consumption of popular culture, kids are getting interested in mainstream pop by the age of 9 or 10 and digging Rhianna, Niki Minaj, No Direction,Taylor Swift, Calvin Harris etc.

Childhood is not what it used to be.

Fear not! This is not a Daily Mail style rant about how much better things used to be when the world was full of boys playing football using their jumpers as goalposts.

In many ways things are much better now. No corporal punishment in schools. A golden age for kids films compared to some of the dross I had to put up with. Fantastic internet resources for teachers to use in the school. Kids get to travel far more and see more of the world.

To get to the point.

I’d like to hear about songs, films, poems, TV programmes, etc that illustrate how childhood used to be, how it is today and just for fun, how it might be in the future. How long before we have Roboteachers in the classroom? “Kiss my shiny metal, class!”

For the sake of this thread (just like in Boyhood) childhood lasts until about the age of 18.

It’s an enormous topic, but rather an interesting one.

Let’s kick off in the 50s when a new word entered the language: teenager.

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Comments

  3. Blimey KFD, you do set us challenges. It’s starting to resemble homework !

    The Railway Children is often dissed for being an idealised view of Edwardian childhood which I think is wrong. It isn’t edgy and people generally are kind and well intentioned. The writer wrote the book based on what she knew as her father had died when very young. I think the classic film is a very good representation of one side of childhood.

    • “hangs head in shame”

      Sorry Dodger! I fear I’ve occupationally damaged by working as a teacher.

      I get these bees in my bonnet about things and can’t resist consulting the mighty hive mind of the AW.

      Here’s Rodney Crowell reminiscing about his childhood.

  12. Want to get a feeling for childhood? Nothing better than listening to some songs about Xmas.

    If nothing else, you’ll get to hear what the kids want for Xmas.

    HMHB

    Chuck Berry

  14. There’s a whole genre of kids’ books full of horrific tales of the dreadful things that happen to naughty children. The Tiger Lilies have really captured this sinister side of childhood.

  17. By strange coincidence I was lecturing about this very thing last night; the social construction of childhood, moral panics about children, international childhoods, what ‘childhood’ is, past, present and future, etc.

    So I give you this. Past, but has universal resonance, I think. Probably ‘adolescence’ rather than childhood, maybe. Rather’70s. (Or my ’70s, anyway.)

    The Jam: ‘When You’re Young’. Fun video.

    https://youtu.be/Xdl8hE07sYE

    • I’m repeating it at 10.00 am this Saturday if you can get to Central London and fancy being an undergraduate Psychology student for the day. 🙂 I should add some of these YouTube tunes to my Power Point.

  21. Stiff Little Fingers – Bits Of Kids
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaBUr2f9Yxg

    It was nothing like that in my day, not here in my town
    We didn’t get things all our way till we were full-grown
    Now they go into pubs and you’re gonna get mugged in my town

    So you read about it every day, in the headlines
    How they take and take and drive away, sex and late nights
    And it’s gotta be wrong, because they’re so young

    They’re only bits of kids, they’re only bits of kids
    It’s always bits of kids today

    She makes the breakfast, one of eight, all in one room
    Each uncle’s call keeps them up late, yes, in this town
    And he won’t go home ‘cos he’ll just be alone till night time

    They’re bits of kids, they’re only bits of kids
    It’s always bits of kids today

    Broken cities ‘n’ broken homes, bits of kids who don’t grow whole
    Broken cities ‘n’ broken hearts, bits of people who fall apart
    In my town

  23. The Undertones – My Perfect Cousin

    The Undertones always seemed to be younger than they actually were. Besides, Subutteo was a passion of mine from the age of eight!

  24. The Beatles – Little Child

    http://youtu.be/Y66X_CLMljM

    In 1963, the world and I were both very young. The Beatles and, therefore, pop music were only just getting going. Songs clocked in at under two minutes. My babysitting aunt, aged fifteen, loved to dance. She brought her dancette with her as we didn’t have a record player. Bliss!

  26. Thanks for all the postings. I bet many of us would love be masquerade as undergraduate students and listen to your lecture! Ruby. You can tell your students that you know a loony in Stockholm who discusses this kind of thing for fun.

    So what about those songs that socially construct childhood and teenager hood?

    Summertime blues, My generation , the Young Ones, Royals, Girls just want to have fun, Anarchy in the UK, Teddybears picnic, The Ugly Duckling, Satisfaction,

    Just a few off the top of my head. The ones for earlier childhood are far more difficult to put one’s finger on. But they exist of course,

  32. Do kids still read the traditional fairy stories? You see quite a few volumes around, but they tend to be upmarket productions for grandparents to buy as presents. Of course in 1962 Jack Ross came along and trampled on our childhoods with this work of spooneristic genius…I don’t remember the laugh track being quite so painful, but there you go.

    A year before, Professor Stanley Unwin had given us this.

  33. My most posted song in all three guises of The Word/Afterword websites
    Wicked Annabella by The Kinks

    I’m sure every neighbourhood has a house like this that the locals kids rush by.
    I’ll be back to post it again next Halloween!

    In a dark and misty house
    Where no Christian man has been
    Wicked Annabella mixes a brew
    That no one’s ever seen

    Relatives have passed her by
    Too scared to even say hello
    She’s in perpetual midnight
    She shuts out the day
    And goes about her sinful ways

    I, I’ve seen her hair, I’ve seen her face
    Look towards mine
    I, I’ve felt her eyes burning my sole
    Twisting my mind

    Little children who are good
    Should always go to sleep at night
    ‘Cause wicked Annabella is up in the sky
    Hopin’ they will open their eyes

    Don’t go into woods tonight
    ‘Cause underneath the sticks and stones
    Are lots of little demons enslaved by Annabella
    Waiting just to carry you home

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