The URL can be used to link to this page

Home My WebLink AboutThe Brussels Post, 1975-10-22, Page 9;Parker .1•1• .1M• 4•=1=1 MEM. WWI Plumbing & Heating 1 1 / me.. Nooks Umwe mon gam ••• mill• • I 887-6079 tHE, BRUSSELS .POSti OCTOBER, ,210, 197`5'. ti At hildren's Aid banquet Resist end of 'childhood, speaker tells CAS Onta is a wilt Gord Inivers a Min Sault S Mr, return )r a f ne Phil Tonto a Bete :ffield. Britt ,ronto a th he gall s be of h Lepha e. e Suth y, Inv 1 Mr. a rsoll w rs. Wal for nothing is fixed forever d forever; it is not fixed. The arth is always shifting, the light always changing, the sea does of cease to grind down the rock. enerations do not cease to be no and we are responsible to eel because they are the only tnesses we have. The sea rises, elight fails, lovers cling to each then :and the children cling to s. The moment we cease to hold ach other, the moment we break th with each other, the sea ngulfs us and the light goes oft-C.' James Baldwin With this remark, Dr. Donald orgenson, Professor of Psycho- gy at Wilfred Laurier University Waterloo, summed up his dress to the guests at the uron County Children's ,Aid quet held in Clinton Thursday ning. Dr. Morgenson's topic was ildhood's ,End' and dealt with e rights and privileges of ldren in any society. In a morons but explicit way, Dr. orgenson defined childhood as marvellously carefree period of to which all are entitled-and en went on to explain how the uth of today is rebelling against eiety which often denies them at kind of upbringing. 'It is a fact that many years ago ildren were an integral part of It family life, but ',we have, en over the past 400 years a dual but sure isolaton process erring, where we have pushed m gently into a world almost ally devoid of adults,' Dr. rgenson said. 'Slowly but ely we have forced them to ate a world of their own. No der then, as John Plumb has din the winter Horizon, (1971) y have made that world a del of rebellion.' speaker pointed out that lent paintings and writings of to the fact that in times long , children lived their lives ether with adults. They were er really apart from them. ey ate with them, drank with no, partied with them, played h them, pointed out that famous kings such as the Battle tween. Carnival and Lust 9), the Peasant Wedding 8); and The Peasant Dan& 8) by Bruegl shoWed 'men women drunk out of their Its, groping for each other h unbridled lust' having child- eating, drinking and playing t along with the adults. hildren were not thought as luring a special or sometimes rile environment,' Dr. Mor- son said, 'They were not ght to require special enter- bunt, special clothes, (except she would dictate), nor was it ght necessary to isolate them the very sophisticated ribal- of adult life, in the tavern or htne.' er 1500, the speaker told his lice, society and the whole ern world needed highly led and highly trained meta for inetee, law, medicine, fleas. Science and techtuilogy an to invade more and More Of i e life, church lift, cot Ile and finally family life. 'roe about 1800 onward,' Dr. Bensona stated,4 these needs itiie n nsIlyWcetilnlast°tcdietY17 aTtlh'es 4trous growth of technology ,T)ded- more prolonged inten- nd extetive education. This ;110d education slowly but separated children, and 'scents from the adult outlgstets tattier naturally, e(1 Wodd of their own sing, ond that incorporated "11 morals, their) owti clothes, their own music, their own mythologies,' the speaker continued. 'In turn, the older youngsters began to capture the. minds and the hearts of children, who shared the same existential territory,' John Plumb put it this way: `We can now look back with longing to the late medieval world, when, crude and simple as it was, men and women and children lived their lives together, shared the same morals as well as the same games, the same excesses, 'as well as the same austerities. In essence, youth today is rebelling against 400 years of, repression and exploi- tation.' Essentially split-level• implies, not only split-level homes,' the speaker said. Dr. Morgenson deplored the 'regimented playtime, the lack of opportunities for what he called wasteland experiences and the repression of imagination in today's formula for childhood. 'Perhaps technology, that opiate of the people, has come close to killing beauty, holiness, mystery and innocence,' Dr., Morgenson said. 'These are' things which I find most beautiful in children. In sum, perhaps science has killed the innocence of children, and come close to killing childhood. Kids, if this it true, may be trying to avoid their own childhood's end by their flight into unreason, where they can preserve magic innocence.' Dr. Morgenson went on to say If you get an envelope of Christmas seals in the mail this week and wonder if someone has set the clock ahead a month and you haven't noticed, relax. Because of the threat of a mail strike, the Huron Perth Lung Association mailed out their seals a couple of weeks early, Mrs. Beryl Davidson, director of the organization said. Christmas seals are the society's annual fund raising method. that in his opinion, adults may also be resisting their childhood's end, but in a slightly different way. Look at styles today, clearly reminiscent of past years, irre- coverably lost decades,' the speaker said. 'Books, such as catalogues orininally published years and years ago, representing a lost world, lost relationships etc. Home designs, decorations, the entire world possibly sickened by a hopelessness in today's world, would like to take that fatal step into the past where things. were clearly more human, more innocent, more childlike.' `Youngsters of today appear to be more controlled and inhibited, fearing expressiveness,' Dr. Morgenson observed. 'They tend to intellecttialize many things, apparently somewhat afraid of being human.' They are con- sidered by many to be pseudo- mature, cool, detached. emotion- ally bankrupt and completely bored. They are also developing a self-centered intellectua lism.' Factors which may have contri- buted to this state of affairs may be the bomb and the over- whelming technology of the age; mass media which the professor says has made hypocrites of many world leaders; affluence; depres- sion-bred parents; and the fact that kids have been exiled to a world where there are `few adults to rap with, few adullsto identify with'. `They simply are not as color ful, lively, flamboyant, easy- "We're not rushing our sup- porters, we're just rushing on account of a possible strike," she said. Ordinarily the seals are sent out in early November, she said. 'If the threatened strike hap- pens, and if it continues for a long time, Mrs. Davidson said, the national office of the lung assOci- ation was asking chartered banks and trust companies to accept donations to the Christmas seal compaign. going as former youngsters may have been,' Dr. Morgenson feels. `Many of our kids have not learned to play with easy aband- on, so that even their pursuit of pleasure seems frenetic and forced. 'In short, they are prematurely mature, sober, appearing as adolescents who have skipped childhood and as youlig adult who have somehow skipped adole- scence. Some play at love but without really experiencing the intimacy and devotion which most often sustains love in mature relationships.' _Tracing his own childhood from endless kite flying through sand- lot sports to marbles from dawn to dusk and hiking with friends for days and days, Dr. Morgenson added, `My potential in those days concerned no one, but me occasionally. We were free to do what we wanted. If the world worries about me at all today, it is because of the possibility that 'I might live too long:' He urged his audience to resist childhood's end. `Our salvation appears to lie in our dreams,' the. professor said.' `The child who is the dreamer, the dawdler, the mystic, will be able to rekindle the human imaginations and rekindling of imagination is vital today.' He said that in this age of change and challenge, people are sorely tempted by two forces-love r - ZIP ELECTRIC CONTRACTING Residential, Commercial Industrial Snoods, Ont. • Pb. $8141119 Prop. WAYNE GRUBE• L., for the new and a flight from responsibility, 'I certainly hope that the Children's Aid. Societies of Ontario can successfully resist enshrining the new, repudiate the old and •tested tradition and I hope that also professional child care workers of the CAS will remain models for other adults in our society who have lost their • parental concern ipr. Morgenson concluded. Save money! Cut taxes! with a Registered Retirement Savings Plan accummtilating at Member Canada Deposit insurance Corporation. • VICTORIA and GREY TRUST COMPANY SINCE 1E1E39 W.W.Cousins, Manager Listowel, Ontario Christmas seals mailed early VG