Discourses about Childhood: Enlightenment's Separation of Children from Adults

Running head: DISCOURSES ABOUT CHILDHOOD
Discourses about Childhood
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1DISCOURSES ABOUT CHILDHOOD
Introduction
Enlightenment was a European intellectual movement that emphasized on reason
along with individualism as compared to that of tradition. The philosophical movement acted
as a departure from the traditional social doctrines and brought about a new kind of thinking
in the society. Discourse from the point of view of the social constructionist is not merely
about language but rather about the cultural practice that is encoded in the language (Francis
et al., 2017). Discourse is indicative of the social practices that exist apart from that of
language. Discourse plays a dominant role in the construction of the individuals and it
consists of meaning and symbols that help in the constructing a view pertaining to the
incidents. The enlightenment started to perceive children in a different light and childhood
was made a unique category with the help of this movement. This essay discusses regarding
how the Enlightenment discourse distinguished children to be a separate species as compared
to that of the adults. It also elaborates whether the evidence pertaining to this kind of
separation can be found in the spatiality of contemporary childhood institution.
Discussion
Questions pertaining to childhood have bothered the historians in the recent years and
there are debates around the fact whether the idea in relation to childhood is a phenomena
that is recent. This kind of view has been put forward by French Author Philippe Aries, the
French historian. Aries has the notion that modern world has seen a transition pertaining to
people’s lives regarding childhood. In the medieval society, the young people who were
around seven years old had to move out of the protection of family into that of the broader
adult society. They had to act as smaller versions of that of the adults who were around them.
In contrast to this in the modern age after the period of enlightenment, seven marked a move
from that of infancy to childhood (Carpenter 2016). It was considered to be a special state

2DISCOURSES ABOUT CHILDHOOD
pertaining to transition and the structure of family revolved around this. The Enlightenment
discourse considers childhood to be an isolated family unit that revolved around needs of the
child. It has been argued by Aries that this is a modern change and schooling helps in
bringing about a phase that is called “ childhood”. According to Aries, the conception in
relation to childhood was non-existent in case of medieval society. He studied the medieval
painting on the basis of which it could be said that in the medieval era the children acted as
the small version pertaining to the adults. The paintings of Jesus show him having ‘grown-
up’ features and his body is shown to be elongated. This helps in bringing forth the idea that
the medieval artist used to view children like that of ‘reduced’ version of the adult. The
clothing pertaining to medieval children was the small version as compared to that of the
adults. The infants used to wear baby clothes that was the same for both the boys and girls
and at about the age of seven these children started wearing the smaller version of that of the
adult outfit (Habermas 2018). The medieval times saw children as having less amount of
emotional loading or importance for their parents. There are children who involve themselves
in the act of killing and they carry out evil acts like shooting and strangling. Murder is an
extreme crime and it is perpetrated both by the adults along with the children in the society.
The teenagers like the adults have their own motives and they indulge themselves in the act
of killing so that they can appease their inner selves.
From that of the seventeenth century or in the age of Enlightenment conception
pertaining to children began to evolve. This was illustrated with the help of art in which the
ordinary children were provided with a different kind of importance and the dead children
were often portrayed. This can be considered to be an important point in relation to history of
the feeling. The change pertaining to sentiment took up two forms: one in which the children
took up central role within that of the family when the parents started to derive pleasure after
watching the antics of children (Beier 2015). The moralists along with the writers of the age

3DISCOURSES ABOUT CHILDHOOD
started to conceive of children as being fragile beings who wanted to be safeguarded. The
Enlightenment was witness to the changing conception of the children. Schooling played an
important role in attributing a separate identity to that of the children. The opportunity of
schooling was initially opened to that of the male children belonging to the aristocracy but
later on in the modern period all the children got this opportunity irrespective of their social
origins (Williams 2017). “Schooling” acted as the quarantine period pertaining to children
between that of infancy and that of the adult life. The gradual extension of these concepts in
Enlightenment provided the basis of a new idea pertaining to childhood.
The Enlightenment was witness to the rising discussion about the social problems
pertaining to children. Children were thought of to be a separate entity and it was suggested
that they can act as a hope in searching for the solutions of the problems of the society. The
Enlightenment saw the embracing the civil rights along with that of sexual liberation
movement. It contributed in viewing childhood as separate species from the adults and laid
great amount of stress on the aspect of childhood. Immaturity in relation to childhood was
held to be a biological fact but this immaturity was given a different light from that of the
seventeenth century (Crane 2015). Society started to conceive of this aspect of immaturity in
a different manner and this aspect of immaturity was made meaningful within culture. The
Enlightenment thus started to view childhood like that of a social institution that was separate
from the adults. A social constructionist view developed pertaining to childhood in which the
children played an active role and they acted as the constructor pertaining to their lives.
Childhood was constructed in a different manner and the societal changes helped in providing
a new identity to the children. Children was conceived of to be an agentic social actor and
they were active in constructing their circumstances instead of being subject to them (Tustin
2018). There were different kinds of opportunities that helped in examining the lives of the
children by taking recourse to social fabric. Childhood was thought of to be socially