SHCY 2009 Keynote Address by Peter N. Stearns

 

Friday afternoon, in a crowded hall on the Berkeley campus, Peter N. Stearns, Professor of History and Provost at George Mason University presented the keynote address of the 2009 conference.  Stearns’s many publications include American Cool, Constructing a Twentieth-Century Emotional Style (1994) and Anxious Parents: A History of Modern Childrearing in America (2004), and editor of An Emotional History of the United States (1998), American Behavioral History: An Introduction (2005), and Childhood in World History (2006).

 

Stearns summarized his talk for the Bulletin:

“In my keynote address, Defining Happy Childhoods: Assessing a Recent Change, I tried to identify a bit more clearly when the idea that childhood should be a happy time gained traction. I've long been interested in this, after hearing colleagues in the field mention what a novel notion this is (correctly, as it turns out). My interest was further spurred by work for my survey of childhood in world history, when it became clear how many agricultural societies assumed that childhood was something to be endured, not a particularly sparkling period in life.

 

“A caveat: this is not an argument that children before the contemporary era were necessarily less happy than they are now. It focuses on changes in adult beliefs (which children also pick up) about what childhood should be.

 

“In Western culture, the gradual abandonment (in majority circles) of the idea of original sin helped prepare the transition, but 19th century materials on childhood still rarely mentioned a positive happiness goal. This occurred only from the 1920s onward, when it became a major focus. This chronology also allows discussion of what caused the shift, from the new demographics to consumerism.

 

“Beyond identifying and, tentatively, explaining the transition, the essay explored consequences, in terms of altered parental and childish expectations alike. Schools are affected with efforts to associate learning with "fun", and other institutions for children show the imprint as well. Consumerism obviously expands the emphasis, but downsides may include the growing incidence of depression for children aware of the goals but unable to meet them.

 

“This particular talk focused on American evidence, but comparative work is amply justified to see if, when, and how other societies (partly perhaps reflecting some American consumer influence) effected similar changes, and with what results.”