[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
. And it was not hard, particularly when sur-rounded by the growing profusions of a consumer society, to assumethat more was due, including far more elaborate, parentally sponsoredtoys.The challenge was, on the whole, intensified with the spread ofsuburbanization, particularly after World War II.The suburban move-ment responded in part to a desire to have play spaces for children inthe form of spacious yards, one of the goals cited by the play experts inthe 1920s as an antidote to excessive urbanism.But suburban yardswere often isolated, limiting the capacity of children to join in the kindof spontaneous cohorts that had earlier formed in small-town America.At the least, parental responsibility for driving children to more organ-ized play sites could feed the sense of a wider obligation to provide en-tertainment.33Parental obligations increased for one other structural reason,though this was not often noted explicitly: the decline in the number ofsiblings and, often, increased tensions between those siblings who didcoexist.The extent to which brothers and sisters helped entertain packsof siblings, even in the urban upper middle class, as late as the 1890s, is I M BORED 193quite striking, as various memoirs and diaries suggest.But, withsmaller, tenser cohorts, and also with the increasing emphasis on theimportance of strict age-grading in play, this alternative declined.Theneed to provide play, often in part to distract a rivalrous pair, grew ac-cordingly.The impulse toward greater parental responsibility was heightenedin turn by two assumptions about children s proclivities in the modernworld: first, that, when underentertained, they could get into unprece-dented trouble, and, second, and more important, that appropriate en-tertainment was vital to educational development and ultimate schoolsuccess.In both these categories, children could not in fact take care ofthemselves, even in their own space, but required explicit adult provi-sion.The delinquency argument cropped up with increasing frequencyas public fears grew, from the 1920s into the 1950s and beyond.Dreikursposed the problem in alarmist tones, in a 1968 offering: a group ofteenagers destroyed power lines in a Midwestern city, offering as analibi They were bored and didn t know what to do about it. Themanual drove the point further: At this point, no home in America canbe considered exempt.No parent today can safely feel that none of hischildren might become one of these vandals. Providing entertainmentcould be a crusade against children s propensities for evil.And, even ifthis fear was dismissed as extremist, the broader point, that parentallyprovided play was vital to children s psychological health, to their abil-ity to cope with otherwise festering emotions, was widely accepted, inthe popular literature, from the 1920s on.Seipt again: We can learn agreat deal about our children through watching their play.Indeed, psy-chiatrists and educators have developed so-called play therapy, whichoften helps children to attain a better emotional balance and an im-proved attitude toward the world around them. The point here wastwofold: children needed play, and parents were actively responsiblefor providing and monitoring that play.34Play, in fact, became a contemporary equivalent for work, prevent-ing the kind of idleness that the devil could find, in the form of crime orof psychological imbalance.With children s work declining, parentallysponsored entertainment stepped in to take up the slack.Delinquency arguments, picked up by ordinary parents, figuredstrongly in the growing support for the rapid expansion of LittleLeague baseball in the 1950s in turn a substantial commitment of 194 ANXIOUS PARENTSparental time in the days before soccer moms.Little League teams had11,800 participants in 1949, 334,300 by 1958, and more than a million by1964.Several factors entered in, including white-collar fathers delightat finding a new way to bond with their sons, and there was a great dealof blatant commercial sponsorship.But parents growing delinquencyfears were central.As one parent also an FBI agent put it, baseballhelped boys stay clean by channeling the efforts.into wholesomerecreation rather than mischievousness and acts of vandalism. Parentally sponsored baseball was also preventative against sexualcrimes, another 1950s fear that experts pinned on an unwholesomefamily and social atmosphere and in which, as a leading psychothera-pist put it, the fault lies with the parents. In reaction, Little League fa-thers not only took their sons to practices and games and ardentlycheered them on but also spent vast amounts of time building ballfieldsand otherwise devoting themselves to this new target for parenting.35The schooling message was even more strident in justifying new re-sponsibilities for leisure.Of course, many parents doubtless believedthat their entertainment obligation stemmed in part from the burdensthat contemporary schooling placed on children, particularly givenAmericans ambivalence about intellectual endeavor and the sense thatschooling might overwhelm frail children.But the official connection,and one that clearly struck home as well, involved the importance ofplay in stimulating learning, exploration, and creativity [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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. And it was not hard, particularly when sur-rounded by the growing profusions of a consumer society, to assumethat more was due, including far more elaborate, parentally sponsoredtoys.The challenge was, on the whole, intensified with the spread ofsuburbanization, particularly after World War II.The suburban move-ment responded in part to a desire to have play spaces for children inthe form of spacious yards, one of the goals cited by the play experts inthe 1920s as an antidote to excessive urbanism.But suburban yardswere often isolated, limiting the capacity of children to join in the kindof spontaneous cohorts that had earlier formed in small-town America.At the least, parental responsibility for driving children to more organ-ized play sites could feed the sense of a wider obligation to provide en-tertainment.33Parental obligations increased for one other structural reason,though this was not often noted explicitly: the decline in the number ofsiblings and, often, increased tensions between those siblings who didcoexist.The extent to which brothers and sisters helped entertain packsof siblings, even in the urban upper middle class, as late as the 1890s, is I M BORED 193quite striking, as various memoirs and diaries suggest.But, withsmaller, tenser cohorts, and also with the increasing emphasis on theimportance of strict age-grading in play, this alternative declined.Theneed to provide play, often in part to distract a rivalrous pair, grew ac-cordingly.The impulse toward greater parental responsibility was heightenedin turn by two assumptions about children s proclivities in the modernworld: first, that, when underentertained, they could get into unprece-dented trouble, and, second, and more important, that appropriate en-tertainment was vital to educational development and ultimate schoolsuccess.In both these categories, children could not in fact take care ofthemselves, even in their own space, but required explicit adult provi-sion.The delinquency argument cropped up with increasing frequencyas public fears grew, from the 1920s into the 1950s and beyond.Dreikursposed the problem in alarmist tones, in a 1968 offering: a group ofteenagers destroyed power lines in a Midwestern city, offering as analibi They were bored and didn t know what to do about it. Themanual drove the point further: At this point, no home in America canbe considered exempt.No parent today can safely feel that none of hischildren might become one of these vandals. Providing entertainmentcould be a crusade against children s propensities for evil.And, even ifthis fear was dismissed as extremist, the broader point, that parentallyprovided play was vital to children s psychological health, to their abil-ity to cope with otherwise festering emotions, was widely accepted, inthe popular literature, from the 1920s on.Seipt again: We can learn agreat deal about our children through watching their play.Indeed, psy-chiatrists and educators have developed so-called play therapy, whichoften helps children to attain a better emotional balance and an im-proved attitude toward the world around them. The point here wastwofold: children needed play, and parents were actively responsiblefor providing and monitoring that play.34Play, in fact, became a contemporary equivalent for work, prevent-ing the kind of idleness that the devil could find, in the form of crime orof psychological imbalance.With children s work declining, parentallysponsored entertainment stepped in to take up the slack.Delinquency arguments, picked up by ordinary parents, figuredstrongly in the growing support for the rapid expansion of LittleLeague baseball in the 1950s in turn a substantial commitment of 194 ANXIOUS PARENTSparental time in the days before soccer moms.Little League teams had11,800 participants in 1949, 334,300 by 1958, and more than a million by1964.Several factors entered in, including white-collar fathers delightat finding a new way to bond with their sons, and there was a great dealof blatant commercial sponsorship.But parents growing delinquencyfears were central.As one parent also an FBI agent put it, baseballhelped boys stay clean by channeling the efforts.into wholesomerecreation rather than mischievousness and acts of vandalism. Parentally sponsored baseball was also preventative against sexualcrimes, another 1950s fear that experts pinned on an unwholesomefamily and social atmosphere and in which, as a leading psychothera-pist put it, the fault lies with the parents. In reaction, Little League fa-thers not only took their sons to practices and games and ardentlycheered them on but also spent vast amounts of time building ballfieldsand otherwise devoting themselves to this new target for parenting.35The schooling message was even more strident in justifying new re-sponsibilities for leisure.Of course, many parents doubtless believedthat their entertainment obligation stemmed in part from the burdensthat contemporary schooling placed on children, particularly givenAmericans ambivalence about intellectual endeavor and the sense thatschooling might overwhelm frail children.But the official connection,and one that clearly struck home as well, involved the importance ofplay in stimulating learning, exploration, and creativity [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]