Reimagining Childhood

We might start with the challenge put forth by Antoine de Saint-Exupery in The Little Prince, “All grown-ups were children once, but only a few of them remember it.” Do you remember it? Do you really? Do you recall the way you, as do most children, looked for a world without the prying eyes of adults?

We learn that, in most human societies, children have preferred to spend their time playing and exploring with peers in a world separate from adults and their scrutiny. The anthropological evidence for this pattern is rich and widespread. Deprived of this critical phase of unsupervised exploration, the internet has become the only place left where children today “can grow up without adults." (click: Where Do The Children Play?).

That’s the fundamental insight of the discussion piece. The example of the Bayaka tribe (Congo) merely serves as but one illustration in the several hundred thousand years of childhood evolution of a peer culture i.e. one featuring a strong component of child-centric learning. No one is suggesting we “go native” but before we complain about a child’s screen time or lament the “anxious generation,” consider how we may have been undone by a mix of shifting parental attitudes, car-dependency, and urbanization.

So there’s no point in whining about the impulses endowed to them by evolution. Children simply don’t have the benefit of a robust peer culture, because they have fewer places for unstructured play with their others, a topic similar to the one we took up years ago with reference to Richard Louv’s Last Child In the Woods.

They simply can’t hide from us anymore. Maybe children have always looked for a world without us. With the internet, they have found one such lying in the rubble. Maybe the answer is to change the game.

Please note the following RSVP Policy for Member Monday: RSVP sign-up opens up at 11:00am on Fridays via the City Club weekly Newsletter. Seats are first-come, first-served: the first 14 secure a spot at the table, the last 3 on the couch. Cancellations must be made 24 hours in advance or the standard Social Lunch rate applies.