Growing Up in America

Students’ responses to my question dot the centuries. On the one hand, they are aware that the passage is not likely to be a contemporary one, and, on the other hand, that it is probably “old,” given that they find it in a course taught by a historian. Beyond that, their comments reflect common problems in understanding the place of children and the young in contemporary as well as historical circumstances. They touch upon many of the myths of growing up, such as whether “children” or “little adults” existed at different points in time; the power of assumptions about the status of the young across different eras; the uses and abuses of child and adolescent psychology; and the place of the young in American culture and society (do Americans really “love” children, or is it their own and not “other people’s children” that they love?). Students also get a sense of the difficulties in answering the apparently simple question that I asked and some of the reasons why this is so.

In this lesson, I suggest some means by which teachers can use “Little Men and Women” to introduce students to historical understandings of growing up.

This activity revolves around an excerpt from the 1847 article “Little Men and Women.” This passage, from a middle-class domestic magazine, has a certain affinity with our own time, as with its concern over “disappearing” childhood. Yet, it is also reminiscent of sentiments expressed over centuries, as with its questions about the presence or absence of “boys or girls” versus “little men and women.” Philippe Ariès put this issue on historians’ agendas in his seminal book Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life; John Demos adapted it to early America in his Little Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony; and historians continue to disagree over interpretations of this issue (2).

The quoted passage also touches on the fact that the young have almost always been condemned for presuming to go beyond their expected place or status. Only since the nineteenth century have such offenses been accorded legal status and institutional solutions, but the ways that people often discussed the young long predate their institutionalization in law and policy. It marks a struggle for control which includes the power of definition and language and which has not yet ended. The powerful influence of social class, gender, ethnicity, race, geography, and generation also shapes the conflict.

The report from The Child’s Friend and Family Magazine raises another general point: the easy confusion and ready substitution of adult opinion for evidence of youthful thought and actions. The writer is unusual in her or his willingness to admit that the “frequency of the complaint” is taken as “indication” that there is in fact something to complain about. More commonly, commentators accept with little question the evidence of adults’ comments as sufficient to indict the dress, manners, “insubordination,” and “precociousness” of the young (and often their parents and origins). The bias of generational criticism, and the memories on which it is based, join together with the substitution of elders’ views for the thoughts of the young to complicate efforts to understand children, adolescents, and youth in their historical contexts. Locating direct and unbiased evidence about children and youths is seldom easy; the question of what should count as an acceptable source is very tricky. Therefore, we must treat all data regarding the young critically and with care. Class, gender, ethnicity, race, and other key factors add their weight to the problem.

Unfortunately, the emotionally powerful judgments and language on which we base our understanding of young people past and present are often fragile or contradictory, if not simply inaccurate, when examined closely. Images and ideologies about the young intertwine in complex, inseparable ways. At times, dark pictures of unchildlike young persons, abused, neglected, and bad, infuse sources such as The Child’s Friend and Family Magazine, observations of foreign visitors, “realistic” art or fiction, and the work of social reformers. At other times, these sources rely on brilliant images of innocent, angelic youngsters in some vaguely defined and dated “golden era.” Children past and present deserve better.

As homework, ask students to read the excerpt of “Little Men and Women” and answer the “Questions for Discussion” (both of which are included with this article). The following day in class, lead a discussion revolving around students’ responses to the discussion questions. In the course of the discussion, be sure to emphasize the concepts discussed below in the “Teaching the History of Childhood” section of this article. In addition, as you discuss each category of questions, encourage the students to consider the following points.

The Source
Historical sources contain bias just as do modern sources, and it is important to stay alert to the difference between opinion and fact. Particularly, in studying the history of growing up, historians must distinguish between the actions of young people and interpretations of those actions made by adults. They must also keep in mind that neither young people nor adults are homogenous categories, but are comprised of individuals who often share more differences than similarities. Such differences include race, class, gender, geographic location, and religion. In addition, at any given period, adults may not even be of the same generation; persons in their thirties may have quite different views from persons in their seventies.

Issues
The question of whether young people are behaving like children or like little adults occurs frequently in the historical record. Thus, contemporary discussions on the subject are not new, but in fact are informed by notions of the past.

Arguments
When writing about young people, authors too frequently rely on the comments of adults as proof of the behavior of the young. As such, scholars must interrogate the sources to determine if the evidence provided has been obtained by direct observation or by hearsay. Similarly, the choice of language can provide clues to the past, as it reveals assumptions about dependency, authority, and obligations. Often observers write of the young using a series of “D” words: presumed “difference” can be transformed into or labeled as “deviance,” or worse, “delinquency.” Delinquency itself is an interesting category, as many of the activities it encompasses are criminal only if committed by the young (such as drinking alcohol or violating municipal curfews). The young’s “dependency” adds yet another complication.

Other Considerations
These questions all revolve around the question of how to situate the young within society and within a historical moment. Some coordinates for placement are physical place and relationship of residence (citizen, alien, etc.); gender; social class; race and ethnicity; historical time. Also, varying degrees of dependency and autonomy mark the different stages of the life cycle, although these degrees have changed over the course of history. That is, although there are legitimate psychological and physiological processes involved in growing up, the way that a society interprets these processes is historically determined.

In teaching the history of growing up in the United States, I emphasize four areas of understanding: integration, inclusion, conflict, and historicity. These concepts are briefly elaborated below. For more detail, please refer to my book, Conflicting Paths: Growing Up in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), pages 5-8.

By “integration” I mean several closely related elements critical to a new history of growing up. First is the need to recombine the fragmented stages of the life course—such as childhood, adolescence, and youth—into an integrated model of growing up. The second is the need to pay close attention to the distinctions, as well as the connections, between childhood/children and adolescence/adolescents. Although one cannot study children or adolescents seriously without recognizing and understanding the concepts and constructs of both childhood and adolescence, the two are neither the same nor easily interchangeable. A third aspect of integration involves a focus on the young themselves, although they are not the only characters on the stage. Fourth, neither crude nor deterministic, an integrated approach to growing up must be sensitive to the psychological and physiological aspects of development. A basic understanding of psychology is useful in interpreting sources and in linking experience with the social and cultural constructions that historically have shaped and reshaped growing up. A final aspect of integration is that children, adolescents, and youth never exist (outside of discourse, that is) as unitary populations. There is no “child,” no “adolescent,” no one “childhood” or “adolescence,” nor is there a “family.” Differences are multiple, and they are not random.

The second area of emphasis, inclusion, calls for attending closely to the identity, origin, and provenance of all voices in the sources of growing up. Inclusion constitutes a crucial corollary to integration, especially with respect to the multiplicity of paths and experiences. The voices and actions of those growing up are a major element in this history, one that is ignored at great peril. To the extent that the young are active agents in making their own history, as John Gillis puts it, and to the extent that these objects are more than histories of ideas, their presence must be significant and direct. Many useful sources await the reader’s attention.

Conflict, and the related elements of dependency and the difficulty of growing up, constitute an extremely important area of emphasis. From the psychological processes of growth to interactions with parents, institutions, civil authorities, social expectations, and the like, conflict takes innumerable forms and produces diverse effects. Its forms and meanings often vary according to class, gender, race, ethnicity, location, age, and historical time. To a large extent conflict defines growing up and its contradictions; the discourse and ideologies of growing up in turn constitute key elements of these contests for power.

Intrinsic to and inseparable from conflict is the issue of dependency. A crucial relationship that defines growing up, dependency varies historically, psychologically, socially, legally, and economically across the paths of individuals. It encompasses status, relationships, aspects of the self, social and legal definitions, metaphors of youth, and processes of growth. To evoke these relationships, historians incorporate useful but incomplete terms such as semi-dependent and semi-autonomous. To chart a course from total dependency to full autonomy seldom approximates the actual paths taken by persons in growing up. Nevertheless, legal concepts about the “emancipation” of minors, social policies, institutions, and adult expectations seldom deviate from this model of linear progression. Dependency marks the efforts of the sometimes vulnerable young to negotiate their way, as well as their elders’ controls and concepts.

Another factor that is almost always overlooked is the inescapable truth that growing up is hard to do. Meeting the multiple, contradictory challenges of biology, physiology, culture, and society is never an easy task, yet powerful images allow little leeway for complexity and variation. Instead they encourage summary judgments about the long-term decline or improvement of the young. Ambivalence or insufficient sympathy toward those in the snares of growing up among persons who have already done so leads, on the one hand, to grand notions of “rise and fall” or “fall and rise,” and, on the other hand, to quick condemnation of the young.

The historicity of growing up forms the final area of emphasis. Typically, the images that govern our understanding of the young derive from notions that are at least implicitly historical. Image, history, and myth intertwine in a complex cultural process to inform our views of the growing up process.

By incorporating these four areas—integration, inclusion, conflict, and historicity—into classroom discussions of growing up, instructors can provide a historical context for today’s pressing questions about “the end of innocence” and “adult-like” children among the nation’s young people.

1. “Little Men and Women,” The Child’s Friend and Family Magazine 7, no. 5 (February 1847): 202-8. See also Harvey J. Graff, “Interdisciplinary Explorations in the History of Children, Adolescents, and Youth—For the Past, Present, and Future,” Journal of American History 85 (1999), 1538-47; Harvey J. Graff, Conflicting Paths: Growing Up in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995); Harvey J. Graff, ed., Growing Up in America: Historical Experiences (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987); and the large body of literature cited in those works.

2. Philippe Ariès, Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life, trans. Robert Baldick (New York: Knopf, 1962); and John Demos, A Little Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth County (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970). See also Ross W. Beales Jr., “In Search of the Historical Child: Miniature Childhood in Colonial New England,” American Quarterly 27 (1975): 379-98; and the literature cited in Note 1.

For a university-level course on the history of children, adolescents, and youth, see Harvey J. Graff, “Interdisciplinary Explorations in the History of Children, Adolescents, and Youth—For the Past, Present, and Future,” Journal of American History 85 (March 1999): 1538-47.

For further reading on the history of childhood, see Steven Mintz’s annotated bibliography in this issue of the OAH Magazine of History.

“Even misses, at whose age their mothers wore
The back string and the bib, assume the dress
of womanhood.” — Cowper’s Tale, Book 4

“Ah!” said an old lady, “there are no girls and boys now-a-days as there were when I was young; they are all little men and women now.” Perhaps the amiable poet whose lines we place at the head of this article, as well as our venerable friend whose sigh over the degeneracy of the present generation yet rings in our ears, may have been influenced by the feeling not uncommon to age. We are quite apt, as we advance in years, to forget the feelings of youth; and as we compare what is passing under our eyes with the indistinct and imperfect recollections of childhood, every thing seems changed, and it is difficult for us to believe that children feel, act and speak as we and our childish companions did. How much of what is at present said on this subject may be explained in this way, we know not. We think, however, that the complaint of our friend is not entirely without reason. At all events she is not alone in her ways of thinking, that a great deal of precociousness is observable among the young of the present age. Numbers may be no test of truth; and yet in this matter, we are inclined to look upon the frequency of the complaint with regard to the children of this day as an indication that it has some justification in the actual state of things. We have often heard the remark made, and our experience and observation have we think verified it, that there prevails among the young a spirit of insubordination which leads them to look upon age as possessing no claims for deference and respect,—to push forward into places belonging to those of more years and experience, and in all practicable ways ape the dress, the fashions and manners of the grown up men and women of society.

We do love to see children dressing, acting, speaking with the simplicity and modesty suitable to their years, and with a due degree of that deference and respect for their elders which in times past have been so much cultivated and commended. If there is anything, not positively vicious, in a young person, which gives us an unfavorable impression of him or her, and fills us with pity and disgust, it is that spirit of boldness, forwardness and pertness which pays little respect to person, time or place, but makes its possessor conspicuous on all occasions. It is quite possible that an error in the opposite direction may have been committed in the days of our fathers; that the young may have been too much repressed, and kept at a distance altogether too great from their seniors. The relation of parent and child a century ago in this country was probably not of that familiar yet altogether respectful character, which it is truly delightful to witness; when the child meets the parent with the confidence which love inspires, and yet with the respect which can never be wanting where true love exists.

The Source
When was this document written: 1990s? 1960s-1970s? 1950s? 1900? 1850? 1700? 1600? 1500? Explain your answer.

Issues
Does the author think it is better for young people to behave like children or like little adults? Explain your answer.

What does the presumed presence or absence of childhood symbolize for the author?

What is meant by such words as: “degeneracy,” “precociousness,” “insubordination”? What do they reveal about the author’s position on the issue?

Argument
What is the author’s argument? What evidence does the author use to support this argument? Does the evidence come mostly from adult opinion or children’s behavior?

Other Considerations
What does the author think about children’s relationships with adults? Does the author think children’s dependency on adults is a good thing or a bad thing?

How would the author’s argument change with a consideration of social class, gender, race, ethnicity, and geography?

Does this argument apply to today’s youth? How would the argument change in different historical time periods?

Did young people have more freedom in earlier centuries? Did they have more responsibility? Do you think there is a connection between freedom and responsibility?

Do young people determine their own history, or do only adults determine what is to be remembered? Explain your answer.

Harvey J. Graff is a professor of history at the University of Texas at San Antonio. A comparative, North American and Western European social and cultural historian, he is especially interested in the history of growing up and the life course; literacy and education; cities and families; social institutions and social policies; and historical methods. His major works include The Literacy Myth: Literacy and Social Structure in the Nineteenth-Century City (1979; 2d ed., 1991); The Legacies of Literacy: Continuities and Contradictions in Western Society and Culture (1987); and Conflicting Paths: Growing Up in America (1995). Professor Graff also edited the book of readings, Growing Up in America: Historical Experiences (1987). He is now completing City at the Crossroads: Dallas, the Book. He also edits the Interdisciplinary Studies in History book series for Indiana University Press. In 1999-2000, he served as president of the Social Science History Association. The author thanks Susan Ferentinos for her suberb editorial assistance in preparing this material for publication.

Lesson Plan

Harvey J. Graff