Archetypal Children

[osprey_archer]

More reading for my Childhood in America project. A good sentence today, from a Child Study manual from 1915: “The great illusion of child study is that inside individual children there is an archetypal child."

Ah, the Archetypal Child. History of childhood books like to give a good drubbing to the Victorian/Edwardian archetype of the child as an innocent flower of enthusiasm, imagination, and spontaneity. Generally speaking, this feat is accomplished by adopting an aloof tone to the idea that anyone ever believed that drek, because obviously the Archetypal Child is an anarchistic little brute who doesn't want to do anything constructive or learn anything about anything except, possibly, sex and swear words.

"Constructive" includes not merely chores and studying but any sort of hobby that might take dedication: art more complicated than scribbling, model airplanes, collections of all sorts, organized sports teams. Organized sports teams are the Death Knell of Childhood and all true children loathe them. Any desperately competetive Little Leaguers/junior soccer players that you know are obviously fake children.

Similarly, the kids who hole up in the library flipping through the dictionary for the most interesting words contained therein (which, yes, often includes swear words - but isn't limited to that) - the ones who might grow up to become academics and write histories of childhood - are not true children either.

I realize that generalizations are to a certain extent unavoidable: at a certain point, you have to leave the trees behind and survey the forest. But I feel that when you get to the point where you generalize away your own existence - then maybe you need to make the definition of Archetypal Child a bit broader.

Comments

[bogwitch64.livejournal.com]

A child is pure potential. Nature and nurture play their parts, but there is no archetype until the world at large forms them into one.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

when you get to the point where you generalize away your own existence - then maybe you need to make the definition of Archetypal Child a bit broader

Amen! I imagine a person tightening the parameters, causing those around her to disappear, until finally the parameters are so tight that she herself vanishes.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

What a dreadful way to die. I wonder if there's a point where she starts to see the parameters closing in - if there is, I hope it's before further collapse is inevitable.