Not little adults nor returnable purchases neither

Victorian thinking largely regarded children as miniature adults with no special needs or requirements. Indeed, children died frequently and were seen as fungible in the Victorian era. This is part of the reason why the idea of putting a nine year-old to work in a factory didn’t seem outlandish to the robber barons of the late-1800s. It was this way until Jean Piaget began to systematically study children and, unfortunately, Piaget’s work has evolved into the current cult of the child that rules American society today.

Yet, has this view of children as possessions really changed? I don’t think so.

Look at the language surrounding children:

• Women are said to want babies (as in “I want to have another baby.”): Are we really to believe that being pregnant is so pleasurable that someone would choose the experience in and of itself with no regard to the end product of the experience? I don’t think so; it’s the baby, the outcome of being pregnant, that is the goal.
• People are said to “have” children: this could refer to either the actual birthing process or the possessing of children. I’m going with the latter: after all, people don’t birth their dogs and cats yet they “have” them.

And do we even have to go into the whole baby as accessory/foreign adoption fetish that seems to be running rampant through today’s celebrity A-list?

I’m ranting and quibbling, I know. I never promised the Thoughts would be profound. Or coherent. Or finished.