Dionysian Childhood

The next part of this assignment I will discuss the historical evolution of dominant discourse on childhood by drawing upon the work of a number of theorists beginning with the writings of Philippe Aries. Aries studied medieval writings on age and development and the portrayal of children and childhood in art and literature. Aries noted that prior to the 17th century, children were not allowed to enjoy their childhood, they were not cherished by adults, and adults felt indifference towards children. The latter point can be linked to child mortality at the time. Parents probably felt that because there was no guarantee that the child would live, there was no point in them growing an attachment to the children. This can be seen in his writings

Jenks spoke about how there were two traditions when it came to conceptualising childhood, there was the Dionysian Child and the Apollonian Child. These two terms came from the Greek mythological figure of Dionysus and the God Apollo. Dionysus represented chaos and unrestraint. The Dionysian child is said to be born with the innate desire to stray from the path of social order. Religion, in particular Christianity, had a large role to play in this way of regarding children at the time Jenks states in his findings (Jenks, 1996). It was thought at the time that the Dionysian child was vulnerable to being corrupted by evil forces both in the outside world and within the child itself, therefore the responsibility was put on parents and adults to supervise the child to ensure his or her pureness was not tarnished by those forces. This is partly the reasoning behind children being ‘swaddled’ during the coddling period as stated by Aries (Aries, 1996). Apollo represented order and reason, meaning that the Apollonian child was a good and pure child. The Apollonian child was said to be beatific and unblemished by their surroundings. This is a more modern take on childhood and can be seen to be true in much of Western society. The Apollonian child may be good and pure, however he or she can always learn deviant behaviour. And so, just like the adult plays a huge role with the Dionysian child, the adult must protect the

The construction of childhood in Ireland has changed dramatically over the last number of years, this can be seen through examining a number of factors including the treatment of children, policies in Ireland, and also by looking at the relationships between children and their parents. Children nowadays are treated with much more respect and kindness, vastly different to that of how children were treated as recently as forty years ago. People of my parents’ generation will tell you, beatings were a thing of normality if a child did something out of place or incorrectly. For example, if a child got in trouble at school for something and a teacher hit them, they could not tell their parents as they would run the risk of getting another beating. This all changed in 1988 when the ‘Rules for National Schools’ came out. Under the School Discipline section it stated “The use of corporal punishment is forbidden.” (Department of Education, 1988). This was the beginning of a huge change in how children were perceived in the eyes of the adult and how the chid-parent relationship was beginning to