Children never were what they were part2

"Even among the Weatern middle class, children are routinely abused, emotionally, physically, and sexually. Children maim other children and shoot and kill their teachers. In the past, children's ignorance of sex and violence helped mark the distinction between children and adults, but now even what we like to regard as "normal" children have free access to information about sex and violence."

I really responded to this sentence in the first page of Duncan's essay. It states a lot about the type of information that is readily available to children in this day and age. In addition to children going through abuse, often these abused children are the ones most at risk for violent tenancies against themselves or others. We may never know what drives an adolescent to take their own life, but we can piece together various events from their own life, as well as their family to somehow find some closure.

Michael Jackson came forth in 1993 and spoke of his own experience with child abuse. This quote is pretty relevant when you think about Jackson's Neverland Ranch and interactions with children. Children as friends, which is also the type of relationships that Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson) had when he was writing stories and photographing.

"..adults often construct ideal childhoods for themselves where childhood is viewed through the lens of a warm nostalgic glow. Where one's childhood has involved abuse of deprivation of some kind of childhood as an ideal is oftentimes created with particular strength." p.102 (Bradshaw, 1990)

Jackson began making music when he was 11. He gained stardom almost immediately, thus, giving up the rest of his childhood for fame and success. I do believe this greatly affected Jackson as an adult. He was deprived from social interactions with children his age aside from screaming fans (which are not the same as friends.) After Jackson's death, I watched many hours of interviews with his friends and family. I remember one in particular, where whoever was speaking said that during Jackson's early career, fans would come to the family's house to "hang out".


more later?