James Marten - The History of Childhood

From the Oxford Very Short Introduction series. Notes below are mostly direct quotations or close paraphrases.

Introduction

• 'Childhood is where you can catch a culture in high relief' - Joseph M Hawes
• Childhood is a social construction, shaped by local conditions, beliefs, and needs, as well as time.
• Young humans have always enjoyed a period of 'childhood', although the nature and length of that phase of life has varied widely. All societies rely on children to carry on their traditions and values. Children are intimately involved at virtually every stage of a society's economic, social and even political development.
• Another constant is that children play.

Traditions

• Christianity helped bring children to the centre of Western thought, including attitudes about family and children and creating moral lessons to be passed down.
• Early child welfare institutions and practices began to appear in England in the 14th and 15th century, through churches, central government, cities and private organisations.

Revolutions

• In the 15th and 16th century, the Renaissance changed the nature of schooling from simply re-creating cultures, preparing youth for work and training priests to encouraging more inquisitive, challenging and comparative points of view. Formal education expanded, literacy grew, and a new sense of the individual's place in society and possibilities of the future began to shape childhood.
• Children were a vital element of the Protestant Reformation (spreading from the 1520s). The family was the centre of the godly life for Protestants and Martin Luther called the school 'the daughter of the church' and advocated broad education.
• The Enlightenment further expanded the kind of knowledge deemed necessary for children to learn and encouraged the spread of education. Locke (late 17th century) thought children were blank slates and this notion of children's innocence was influential.
• The role of economics in children's lives also changed with the industrial revolution. Children had historically been regarded as crucial economic resources for their families and their labour was also crucial to industrialisation.

The rise of 'modern' childhoods

• Children and slavery
• Colonialism and imperialism
• Rousseau, building on Locke, associated children with nature and advocated education based on children's natural interests and curiosity
• By the late 19th century, governments were developing child welfare programs aimed at providing at least a semblance of a model of childhood.
• The rise of industry necessitated the creation of more centralised, modern states, many of which assumed responsibility for education.

Creating a worldview of childhood

• Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1924): 'The child must be given the means requisite for its normal development, both materially and spiritually.' This first clause reflected a shift from a defensive, primarily economic reaction to child dependence and poverty to a more proactive approach centred on education.
• Education expanded dramatically during the 20th century.
• Urbanisation and industrialisation reduced the economic value of children. Conceptions of children and childhood were also shifting. This caused societies to consider children's rights as a separate prerogative. The legal concept of 'the best interest of the child' gradually developed, meaning that courts would consider the emotional and economic wellbeing of the child rather than their economic value in deciding child custody cases.
• The international response to children affected by the world wars led to the rise of organisations that foreshadowed contemporary NGOs.

The century of the child and beyond

• War and conflict
• Advocating for children (Cf African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child stressing responsibility and Vietnamese National LAw for Children stressing respect, piety and love with family, community and friends)
• WHO estimates vast majority of people with health problems caused by climate change are under the age of five

Broadside

It was the chance to see Zadie Smith in conversation which got me in more than the prospect of an 'unabashedly feminist agenda', but the second of those was intriguing too so we went made a day of it. As things transpired, of course, Monday's Q&A and its aftermath contributed to the sense of 'event'-ness about it all, with several of the principals overlapping (Mona Eltahawy, Nayuka Gorrie, Fran Kelly, as well as one of the question-askers Nicole Lee).

Helen Garner and Sarah Krasnostein

I didn't get much out of this. I think it would've helped to have been a fan of Garner's, particularly given that its nominal subject - or at least jumping-off point - was the publication of her diaries. I liked the distinction between diary and memoir (with the latter, you have the opportunity to reflect back on your past behaviour and declaim that you'd never act that way now), the anecdote about the short story that someone else wrote about her (where she was offended not by her characterisation as having rudely dominated the conversation but by an apparently much more minor detail about what she was wearing), and her line about how if you don't know grammar then you don't have the tools to critique your own work.

Who Gave You Permission? Speaking Up and Speaking Out

Nayuka Gorrie was the MVP on this panel but I enjoyed all of them - Raquel Willis, Ariel Levy, Curtis Sittenfeld and facilitated by Michelle Law. Gorrie on writing's power to subvert, particularly in the hands of people who have been marginalised: writing finds its audience, whereas in a mainstream setting you need to contend with all the barriers that society throws in your way. Someone also pointed out that writing can be a tool in the hands of people who would otherwise struggle to speak in the face of power.

Zadie Smith and Jia Tolentino

A crackling conversation, with a great dynamic between the two, one American and the other English, while both also other, with a sense that, in their different registers - Tolentino fast-talking and zig-zagging through her sentences and Smith sonorously reflective and with an air of unspooling - both were thinking out loud, individually and together. I have to admit that, just 24 hours later, I struggle to remember many of the specifics - although freedom was a theme to which they returned more than once - but the impact was marvellous.

Things My Mother Never Told Me

A revue (or possible gala) style event, with a bakers dozen of performers addressing the theme. This might have been my favourite session, helped no doubt by the evening slot and the rapid turnover format. The three who I found least engaging were the three middle-to-older aged white Australian women (Fran Kelly, Patricia Cornelius, Clare Wright) but I think that was mostly that they weren't speaking to me (as filtered through attendant personal biases born of experience, background etc), and even then they brought diversity[*] had some interesting things to say - both Kelly and Cornelius elaborated variations on the theme of their mothers, from a previous generation of course, having told them very little.

The others I all actively enjoyed, though 'entertained' wasn't always the word given the mix of lighter and more serious (and in some cases very moving) approaches - Gorrie (again), Raquel Willis (finding unexpected parallels between her mother and herself), Maria Tumarkin (delivered as spoken word and made me think I actually should read Axiomatic), Ariel Levy (on money) and Aretha Brown especially. Others: Bhenji Ra, Courtney Barnett ("Nameless, Faceless" of course), Curtis Sittenfeld, Mehreen Faruqi, Nicole Lee.

(w/ R, also Hayley, and many others around)

[*] Diversity was - as you would hope - a feature across the program, with better-than-token representation of at least First Nations, LGBTI (including trans women) and women of colour.

Miranda Lambert - Wildcard

I guess there's a type of Miranda Lambert song that I particularly like - namely the contemporary, glossy country-Americana vein she mined to such good effect on the really excellent The Weight of These Wings, some of which shows up on Wildcard in what are, indeed, my favourites on this new album of hers, which includes "How Dare You Love", "Fire Escape", "Track Record" and probably "Dark Bars" (though that last one, the closer, leans more truly country).

The other I especially like is "Holy Water", which is a bit gospel and a bit blues. The ones that go harder at pop or rock (generally one or the other) are mostly less successful; Kacey Musgraves kind of stitched that one up already, although the most Musgraves-esque song here, "Settling Down", is actually quite good.

The good ones are very good, the others are ok, also it's taught me the phrase 'all hat, no cattle', so chalk that up as a win.

Bill Callahan - Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest

Haven't got much into this apart from a few songs. Too murmury for me.

Black is the New White (MTC)

Unquestionably both entertaining and on-point in its staging of urgent questions about race, class and gender in contemporary Australia, operating in an oscillating middle ground between realism and farce (but deliberately much smoother-edged than playwright Nakkiah Lui's excellent Blackie Blackie Brown, which was actually written after Black is the New White).

I enjoyed it but wasn't swept away, which I think was because I went in expecting it to function primarily as political text, whereas the better frame might have been one of social comedy in which case it hits its marks more directly. Some of the stagecraft wasn't what it could have been; the narrator in particular was an inelegant device, though not distractingly so for the most part. But I did think it was very good - lively, sharp-witted, direct and with plenty of subtleties. (My favourite jokes: the revelation about Sonny's family background and the final line about the characters' 'happily ever after', which brings into crystal clear focus one of the most important things that the play is 'about'.)

(w/ Erandathie and Cass)