Too big for their boots

In my youth, children were seen and not heard. They spoke when they were spoken to. They asked leave to take an apple. They expected to clear up the messes made in their own play. They were small fry and knew it.

They knew because adults made plain to them their unimportance in life. Privileges, they were told, would come "when you earn your own living". Or, perhaps, "when you are married". Freedom came to those who paid their own way.

For children, dependent on the work of others for everything, life followed a proper path of education, of training and of discipline. They were oppressed poor things. Their individual development was stultified. Their egos were frustrated, their free expression was inhibited.

They were so downtrodden, poor little dears, that they never had a chance in life. Yet, they won two world wars. In adult life they showed initiative, originality and individuality that is rarely found in youngsters today.

Just think over the list of those whose full development was "frustrated" through the "repression" of old-fashioned upbringing: Churchill, Scott, Irvine and Mallory, Lawrence, Russell, Wallace, Allcock and Brown, Munnings... Downtrodden? Fiddlesticks! Behind the great men followed the cohorts of competent administrators and workmen. They civilised half the world. They brought the nation to its highest peak of prosperity. A people, who understood clearly that children are seen and not heard, did all this.

No one section of the people was responsible for the establishment and maintenance of the inferior place of children. It was the established order of things and reflected the general climate of public opinion. All adults treated all children in the accepted way.

Parents (perhaps I should say most parents) taught their children to respect the head teacher and the priest. The teacher taught children to respect their parents and, in Church schools, the priest or sister. The clergy taught children to respect their parents, their teachers, their eldest and their betters.

My impression is that this upbringing fostered initiative, individuality and the spirit of adventure, rather than suppressed it. Mischief and devilment were, if I remember rightly, more evident then than now.

Naturally enough, for a firm and proper discipline encourages any worthwhile child to express his individuality in rebellion. I am sorry for our present generation of children. From the age of two upwards they are allowed to do very much as they like. Freedom has been handed to them on a plate. Like most free gifts, it is not appreciated.

What youngster now looks forward to "the key of the door" at 21? Most of them have a copy cut when they are 15, leave it at home and wake up father to let them in at midnight.

Denied a proper discipline in life, our present-day children have nothing to rebel against. I believe that unearned freedom saps initiative, destroys individuality and "encourages living soft" instead of living "adventurously". So having had unearned freedom thrust upon them as children, they find no responsibilities in freedom as adults.

This is the new established order. Again, no one section of the people can be held responsible. Parents teach children their "rights" including the right to sue a teacher for assault. Teachers have their work cut out to teach children to respect teachers, let alone anyone else. Priests... well, how many children now come under the influence of a priest at all? I can only record that the influence of the churches has declined; and the nation is poorer for it.

Although, the whole community shares responsibility for the present situation, the educated minority must bear the major share. It was not the working man who started his children down the slippery slope from proper discipline to silly freedom. He rebelled against it, unthinkingly of course. But the discipline that was good enough for his dad, was good enough for him and so good enough for his children too.

It has taken the "enlightened" thinking minority about 50 years to alter "working class" thoughts about the upbringing of children. The better educated parents are the more "enlightened" they seem to become and the worse their children seem to be brought up. The "ordinary" parent has not been given a chance. He has seen the children of educated people brought up as twins to the family cat and dog. He has been told by inspectors, by sentimental social workers, by juvenile courts and by some teachers that discipline is bad. It has taken 50 years but it has worked. The children of all social levels are now equally spoiled by excess freedom.

If things are to be changed, the lead must come once again from the top, from the educated people. Even if there is a lead, it may take another 50 years to restore a proper attitude to children.

Luckily, there are signs that the proper place of discipline in education is still understood by some people. Even more welcome is evidence that influential official opinion is beginning to wonder whether freedom has been overdone.

The educational system must bear its share of blame for the uselessness of many of today's youngsters. Schools have rightly set out to develop fully the individual potentialities of every child. Unfortunately, a fault has crept into the reasoning between the end to be achieved and the means of achieving it. A child does not develop his full individuality through being given life on a plate, to use as he chooses.

He will develop as an individual only through being given something to struggle against. Schools exist to keep children struggling against work which they can only just do, against discipline imposed for their own good and against the weight of adult superiority.

The young human animal is a contrary creature. Give it freedom and it will become an aimless street corner lounger. Give it discipline and a lowly place in life and it will rebel by developing into an individual. Children do not change. They are still small fry today as they were 40 years ago.

Today, though, no one dares tell them so. Inevitably they have become too big for their boots.