Childhood

Abstract

Childhood is, strictly speaking, not a biological phenomenon but a cultural one. Historically, the concept appears when society makes a cultural decision to allow a long time for young people to mature, protecting and stimulating them. To achieve this, society must renounce the desire for immediate labour. It was with Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in the mid-eighteenth century, that childhood became the entire focus of an education: protection, a stimulating environment, renunciation of authority, and – no less – the defeat of the temptation to succumb to child tyranny. In today’s world, childhood must be thought of in a new way: though our children are often overprotected, they are also overexposed to digital technologies, the stranglehold of which seems to compensate for the constraint of school. It is therefore important to establish a cultural third space, free for all children to inhabit, and from adolescence, to offer them the option to take on genuine responsibility.