Socially Constructed Childhood Essay -- Papers

Socially Constructed Childhood Sociologists believe that children are not natural in society, that they do not behave naturally but that society has made children act as they do, and that there parents teach them how to act and make their personality for them at an early age. However childhood 'differs enormously according to time and place' so Philippe Aries believes. Children are treated differently to each other in different parts of the world, for example in India when a girl is 16-17 years old she is forced into an arranged marriage by which her parents arrange. That type of responsibility on a girl of that age is a lot, and most Indian girls refuse and end up running away from home or worse still killing themselves, but in their culture at that age they are seen as adults. Also in China girls are made to bind there feet up at an early age so that there feet do not grow any bigger. Some people may see this as a form of child abuse, but in China, that is what is expected of them. So there are quite a lot of differences in the upbringing of children. Not every child will turn out the same, all children will vary and that is to the way that they are bought up by there parents. It is not just the different cultures, which varies, but also the different social classes have a different way of bringing up children. The upper social class tend to spoil their children to a certain extent because they can with all the money that they have. This socially constructs the child to grow up with a spoilt nature, and would maybe affect the rest of his life because he will believe that he can get whatever he wants. This goes for 'designer babies... ...operly. All this is bringing out paedophilia and it teaches girls to be precautious because of the way they are being made to dress sexily at such an early age. Also it encourages stripping at an early age. In one of the routines that the young children have to do is they have to take of layers of their clothes in a sexy and perfectly timed manor to show off what they are wearing underneath. This shouldn't be forced upon young children because they will grow up with attitude problems all because the parents expecting too much from them. This idea of 'painted babies' is an obsessive way in which parents put pressure and abuse on their children. The way that they get the children to dress and look isn't natural for them at all, and this is a final example of how childhood is gradually disappearing in society today.