Child Saving

1
Child Saving Child Study Movements

• Influence of experts
• G. Stanley Hall (1904)
• Children are not like adults, but unique
  creatures
• Development of adolescence Storm Stress
• Sigmund Freud (1900-1910)
• J. B. Watson (1920)
• Legacy of Child Saving Era/ Child Study Movement

2
Baby Boom

• The Baby Boom, Prosperity, and the Changing
  Worlds of Children
• (1945 1963)

3
Defining and explaining the Boom

• Population increase
• Intangibles most affluent, most favored,
  healthiest, best-fed, best-clothed, best-housed
• Effect of boomers
• Why? Post-war demand, marriage, birth control,
  prosperity, . . . glorification of motherhood

4
Child Development Theorists Baby Boom Era

• Bowlby (1940s, 1958, 1969) Attachment Theory
• enduring, emotional bond between caregiver and
  child
• Emotionally responsive parents have infants who
  have a secure attachment
• Infants who have a secure attachment are more
  likely to explore the world (leads to future
  competence)
• In stressful situations, the responsive parent
  provides protection, comfort, and reassurance
  (and tells the child they can expect a protective
  world)

5
Child Development Theorists Baby Boom Era

• Rene Spitz (mid-1940s)
• Institutionalized infants and children in Europe
• Scheduled NOT responsive care
• Delayed development, failure to thrive, apathy
• Dr. Spock
• Baby and Child Care (1st edition, 1946)
• Advised permissiveness, not following strict
  schedule, with loving guidance

6
Excerpts from Dr. Spock Baby and Child Care

• You know more than you think you do
• Dont be afraid of your baby
• Enjoy children as they are thats how theyll
  grow up best
• Babies arent frail Im afraid Ill hurt if I
  dont handle her right
• Parenting takes time and effort

7
Child-centered family

• Suburbs
• Homogeneous
• EX Leavitttown
• PTA, Scouts, Little League more support
• Economy of abundance
• EX automated washing machines
• Changed employment trends

8
Schools, the Cold War, and the Great Talent Search

• Practical changes in schools
• Hopes to identify most talented (intelligent) to
  compete with Russia
• Sputnick 1957
• National Defense Education Act
• Testing movement (including SAT)
• Racial desegregation (1954) Brown vs Topeka
  Board of Education (Why was it natl priority?)

9
Other influences

• Mass media
• EX 1952, 46 of households had a t.v.
• EX Creation of childrens market (Barbie dolls
  1959)
• EX Music industry Rock n Roll
• Peers
• From Little League to Gangs (juvenile del. inc.)
• Alienation (e.g., J. D. Salinger, Jack Kerouac)
  to Alienating society (crisis of 60s)

10
Myth? Alternative view by Stephanie Coontz

• 1/3 American children poor
• 1/3 of families needed 2nd income
• Media was ethnocentric reality was much more
  diverse
• Glorified Mothers failure captured in the
  Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
• Child-centered values Irrelevant to children of
  poor

11
Baby Bust

• The Age of Narcissism 1963-1982

12
Your views of contemporary childhood

• What is the best part about growing up in
  American today?
• What is the biggest problem children/parents
  face?
• In contemporary American society, does nature or
  nurture rule the philosophical war?
• Do we see children as innocent or corrupted by
  society?
• Do we value dependence or independence in
  children?