When is a Child Not a Child

Abstract

Commonsense tells us that children differ from adults. History tells us that how much they differ, and how, varies with time and place. Childhood, like the family, like marriage, like adolescence or old age, is influenced by cultural and economic context. Its character and ideology cannot be taken for granted. Childhood in Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century is the subject of this paper, and more particularly, how the conflict between middle-class ideals and working-class realities of childhood led to increasing regulation of the conditions of children’s lives.

By the side of many tall and bouncing young ladies in the establishment, Rebecca Sharp looked like a child. But she had the dismal precocity of poverty. Many a dun had she talked to, and turned away from her father’s door; many a tradesman had she wheedled into good humour, and into the granting of one meal more. She sate commonly with her father, who was very proud of her wit, and heard the talk of many of his wild companions — often but ill suited for a girl to hear. But she had never been a girl, she said; she had been a woman since she was eight years old. (Thackeray, Vanity Fair, 1847)