Almost like plants, their care could be rudimentary” “Examples of children treated as lacking any sense, as being essentially uneducable, are legion in the ethnographic record.” “Anthropologists interested in children are treated in a bemused fashion after all, why bother to observe or talk to individuals who ‘don’t know anything’?” (Lancy 1996: 118 also Barley 1983/ 2000: 61)“ (Albeit sometimes by micromanaging them, while Lancy would rather have them figure out more for themselves as children have historically done.)Įven studying children is a strange thing to do in most societies. I can think of ways our society isn’t very good for children, but I agree that compared with traditional societies, we spend a lot of attention and money on children. Lancy contrasts neontocracy (where babies and children are most valued) with gerontocracy (where elders or ancestors are most valued). Lancy contrasts modern childrearing norms with those of traditional agrarian or forager societies. Thus our understanding of good or normal childrearing practices is very different from how children have typically been raised. I see cutting luxury spending as a much more feasible way that people might do some redistribution.Īs in many areas of research, the children who have been studied by academics are mostly from WEIRD (“Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic”) populations. I’m sympathetic, but assuming that families would donate this money if they weren’t spending it to have a baby is not realistic. He argues that the same money could be used to provide adequate nutrition for many more children in the societies he’s studied. One complaint is that Lancy periodically complains about how much money Western families spend on fertility treatments, medical care for premature infants, etc. Given that I want my children to learn things I don’t know, to think analytically, etc, the way I approach learning is very different from how traditional societies approach it. He stresses that traditional childrearing practices are very poor preparation for school. It seems like an anthropologist could squint at a society and see all kinds of things that someone with a different ideology wouldn’t see.īig caveat that what Lancy is describing is traditional, non-industrialized societies where children are expected to learn how to fit into the appropriate role in their village, not to develop as an individual or do anything different from what their parents and ancestors did. I’m a little unclear on how valid Lancy’s conclusions are or how much data they’re based on. I expect they’re typically involved in providing food and other material resources, but that wasn’t emphasized in this book. I was surprised at how apparently universal it is for fathers to be uninvolved.But of course, having childcare done by teenagers and grandmothers requires that those people’s time be available, which usually isn’t the reality we live in. It was striking to me that the expectation that stay-at-home mothers will be responsible for all childcare was a relatively short historical blip. Some more modern views treat women’s childcare work as basically free, traditional cultures have valued women’s labor enough that the society wants to free up their time from childcare. It surprised me that childcare by non-parents was so common.And childcare has traditionally looked mostly like “being sure they don’t hurt themselves too badly.” Except where families were very isolated, it’s not normal in traditional societies for one or two adults to watch their own children all day every day. Even though it doesn’t change anything concrete, I feel some relief that not having endless patience for toddlers seems to be normal.Lancy isn’t a child development expert, but I buy his argument that handling conflict (for example about the rules of a game) is a skill children need to learn, rather than having conflicts always mediated by adults. We don’t live with a tribe of extended family, but my two children play with each other all day, which is how most people throughout time have spent their childhoods. I feel less obliged to entertain my children and intervene in their conflicts.I enjoyed it and would recommend it to people interested in this topic. The first chapter summarizes all his points without the examples, so you could try that if you want to get the gist without reading the whole book. I found it very accessible as a first dive into anthropology. I was a sociology major and understood anthropology to be basically “like sociology, but in Papua New Guinea.” This is the first cultural anthropology book I’ve read, and that was pretty much right. I read David Lancy’s “ The Anthropology of Childhood: Cherubs, Chattel, and Changelings” and highlighted some passages.
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