“Schools [are] … institutions monopolizing the daytimes of childhood.” ~ John Taylor Gatto
“My clients spend their childhoods and in particular their adolescences putting their healthy development on hold, coached and managed by parents who are so fearful and anxious about helping their children succeed that there is simply no room for their children, my clients, to begin to know themselves.” ~ Kate Fagan [What Made Maddy Run: The Secret Struggles and Tragic Death of an All-American Teen]
“Because children grow up, we think a child’s purpose is to grow up. But a child’s purpose is to be a child." ~ Tom Stoppard, [The Coast of Utopia]
“Instead of raising children who turn out okay despite their childhood, let’s raise children who turn out extraordinary because of their childhood.” ~ L.R. Knost, [Two Thousand Kisses a Day: Gentle Parenting Through the Ages and Stages]
“Childhood is just as important a part of life as adulthood. It is not a waiting room to someday start life from. It is life. It may even be the best part of life. Let’s not stifle it, dismiss it, or undermine it. Let children live to the fullest their childhood days; they can never get them back.” ~ L. E. Mastilock
“People talk to you a great deal about your education, but some good, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man carries many such memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days.” ~ F. Dostoyevsky
“What passes as child’s play in many early learning programs today is planned, regulated, organized, supervised, and documented by adults to the point that the lightheartedness, spontaneity, and freedom that define childhood no longer exist.” ~ Jeff A. Johnson & Denita Dinger [Let Them Play]
“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But, for children, play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.” ~ Fred Rogers
“How do we expect to teach kids about consent when many spend their childhoods under coercion?” ~ Kerry McDonald
“Childhood is that state which ends the moment a puddle is first viewed as an obstacle instead of an opportunity.” ~ Kathy Williams
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(The following books by David F. Lancy were discussed in the article from Yale above)
The Anthropology of Childhood: Cherubs, Chattel, Changelings 2nd Edition
by David F. Lancy
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3rd Edition released March 2022…the 2nd edition has lots of great reviews! https://amzn.to/3Qg1151
Raising Children: Surprising Insights from Other Cultures
by David F. Lancy https://amzn.to/3AaC99c
