Children's Needs – Parenting Capacity - Digital Education Resource ...

PrefaceIt is probably true to say that, for most people, childhood is a mixed experiencewhere periods of sadness and loss are balanced with moments of happiness andachievement. Such complexity, however, is rarely represented in the literature ofchildhood. Indeed, much of the written word in the nineteenth and twentiethcenturies depicts childhood in one of two contrasting ways. For example, A.A.Milne’s poem ‘In the Dark’, first published in 1927, (Milne 1971) shows childhoodas a golden era where children are loved and nurtured by caring parents. It is atime characterised by innocence, unqualified parental love, irresponsibility, peerfriendships and a thirst for adventure and knowledge.I’ve had my supper,And had my supper,And HAD my supper and all;I’ve heard the storyOf Cinderella,And how she went to the ball;I’ve cleaned my teeth,And I’ve said my prayers,And I’ve cleaned and said them right;And they’ve all of them beenAnd kissed me lots,They’ve all of them said ‘Good-night.’But never far away is the alternative experience, typified by parental desertion,illness, isolation and poverty. James Whitcomb Riley (1920), who penned upliftingpoems of perhaps questionable quality for children during the 1890s, paints a muchbleaker picture in his poem ‘The Happy Little Cripple’.I’m thist a little cripple boy, an’ never goin’ to growAn’ get a great big man at all! – ‘cause Aunty told me so.When I was thist a baby onc’t, I falled out of the bedAn’ got “The Curv’ture of the Spine” – ‘at’s what the Doctor said.I never had no Mother nen – fer my Pa runned awayAn’ dassn’t come back here no more – ‘cause he was drunk one dayAn’ stobbed a man in thish-ere town, an’ couldn’t pay his fine!An’ nen my Ma she died – an’ I got “Curv’ture of the Spine!”