> >1) We live in an industrialized/fragile environment which makes it
> >almost impossible for children to be children....to have energy and
> >to expend their energy.
You wrote:
>Isn't it only richly industrialized societies such as the USA that
>make it possible for individuals to have "childhood & adolescence as
>we think we know them"? Production of social relations that give
>rise to _long_ periods of childhood & adolescence (during which
>individuals are not asked to take on social roles & tasks aside from
>being children/adolescents, playing, learning, etc.) among the
>working class, beyond the offsprings of the bourgeois & the
>petit-bourgeois, is part of the democratizing process of capitalist
>development.
>
>In contrast, in pre-industrial societies, even the very young (if
>they survived the period of infancy) worked & therefore had social
>roles that went with work, as they still do in many poor nations.
>
>In other words, childhood & adolescence are erstwhile luxury goods
>that have become cheaper through mass production, though they are
>still too pricey for all the young people in the world to enjoy.
>
>Yoshie
What I was trying to say is that we (in the US) live in a "non-natural" environment which, from the stand point of a child, is difficult to live in sanely and healthily. The extreme alienation/specialization of industrial/technological work automatically excludes children from 1) contributing to the social good 2) understanding what their parents do.
What is left for the children to do right now in the USA is to play with each other and to consume toys and entertainment. Playing with each other is becoming more of a problem because the days of going outside and seeing who you could dredge up are gone (in the Bay area anyway). So if you have parents who will drive to play dates, you're OK. Otherwise, you're screwed. So there's a lot of toy and entertainment consumption and the concomittant production of a nervous energy and disatisfaction because there is very little actual interaction with reality and natural processes.
I know that this sounds abstract, but if you have a child, nephew, younger sibling, etc. ask yourself what it is that this child is relating to all day long; chances are that it is some kind of super-processed object or experience. Why do kids destroy their toys? Probably because the only thing that an intelligent kid can do with something is that detailed and finished to that degree is to take it apart. Everything that is served up to kids today is processed to the nth degree: from the junk food to the junk toys to the junk culture. This superprocessing is the very opposite of freedom though it looks like luxury and choice.
What we have done is to provide a bubble for our kids to live in; that is the best that can be done under capitalism. What we all hope is that, by protecting them from the alienating forces of this society, they will be able to grow up happy and healthy enough to withstand the annihilating experience of working and living as (unprotected) adults in a capitalist economy.
So basically, I think I agree with everything you're saying, except I don't see that the children of the West are as lucky as you make them out to be. I came to the US as a child of 9 from a relatively poor country (Romania) to a relatively rich place (LA), but I was much, much unhappier here. LA seemed like an infinite, empty desert to me so far as social relations between people went, and so, though my family was materially richer, my experience of life was much, much poorer.
I agree that it is better for children/adolescents to be able to make an actual contribution (through work) to their family and society; but I think, the way that is done is also very important.
Also I don't understand what you mean by "democratizing" in the following:
"Production of social relations that give rise to _long_ periods of childhood & adolescence (during which individuals are not asked to take on social roles & tasks aside from being children/adolescents, playing, learning, etc.) among the working class, beyond the offsprings of the bourgeois & the petit-bourgeois, is part of the democratizing process of capitalist development."
Thanks,
Joanna B