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Cody Loeper
UWRT 1102 - 006
Professor Voltz
23 March 2015
Childhood from Beginning to End
For me, childhood was the best part of my life so far. Having nothing to worry about,
being able to do what I wanted, and having the most innocence. Every day passed by and all
we could car about was the next tree to climb. Hanging out with the same friends everyday
would never get old. Going to school was a breeze. But at one, unwanted, disgusting, veil
point would come across and ruin it all, the point where childhood meets adulthood, the time
when schools not such a breeze and you become not so innocent anymore. The questions that
we all had were When? How does it come? What influences it? Digesting the fact that
childhood is not eternal is sad but it also shows evolution of the human life cycle. We all
thought that life would go by smoothly or that we would all have our dream jobs of being
astronauts or pilots. We all had to hit the point of growth, maturity and responsibility.
As generations pass, new trends, styles and words are created. The book The Rise &
Fall of the American Teenager by Thomas Hine tears the word Teenager apart. Of course I
dont mean this literally but within the book are many details about the life of an American
teenager. Hine starts with the beginning of the typical teenage life by speaking about
independence and how it comes to teenagers. He doesnt forget to talk about how the average
teenager was starting to be typically taller than his or her parent. This proved dominance and
showed that the teenager could do as he or she wished. The teenager had to search for
independence through attending activities that are a bit rebellious such as Woodstock in 1969.
Hine speaks about how even religion was a way for teens to display their independence. They
would look for something to worship and had something to look forward to. When children

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are young their minds are more open to new ideas. They tend to try and say all sorts of things
that no one could ever imagine. I remember trying to do everything and asking, to my
parents, hundreds of questions. All these questions were only to inform me about the world.
The beginning of childhood is the time that you are open to ideas that run through your new
brain. Ask any child what they want to be when they grow up and you should get a typical
answer of Astronaut, nurse or pilot. This is because the children arent as aware of what they
are saying, they dont comprehend that it takes a lot of work and dedication to become those
things. There is a saying, its like looking through a childs eye, because they are so
innocent and dont understand things that as they mature and get older become more clear.
Through the course of your life you dont exactly think about all the things that are
happening around you. Some things just happen. In the movie Boyhood, by Richard
Linklater, a childs life from age twelve to eighteen is recorded and turned into a movie. This
movie was interesting to me because this child grew up at the same time as me and even was
wearing the same shoes as me both literally and figuratively. The saying walk a mile in his
shoes resonated with me because our lives are so similar. Through this movie I could
connect with myself and look into my past. I could really see what my childhood was like
from another childs eyes. The movie moved through just about all the phases of my life
including the family problems and fights with my siblings. This child must find a way to cope
with the relocation of his family multiple times and the devastating divorces of his parents.
You can see how a persons childhood can instantly change by such outstanding events.
These events can cause a person to grow up and mature faster than the average person.
For example, say that youre a boy living with your family at a young age and your
parents decide to get a divorce and its messy. You have to go with your mother because
youre father left you and your other three sisters. You, now as the man of the family, feel
obligated to take care of your mother and sister better than your father ever could. You have

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to get a job as soon as possible and support the family the best you can. Youve become
mature faster than the typical 15-year-old boy. Youre supporting your entire family and
trying to make youre mother happy. Some might say that childhood, at this point, has
reached an end.
Usually something that happens very often, as you are a child, will be remembered in
your adulthood. As you grow older you only remember the things that really captured your
eye when you were a child. At that time you can either consider yourself at the ending of
childhood or already out of childhood. It is quite interesting to think about what type of shoes
that every one of your school friends wore or who had the coolest set of markers because
these are the things that we would end up remembering as adults. Childhood is something
that should be valued because one day it will come to an end. The saddest thing is that it will
never come back but that will not ever stop us from remembering.
Lets look a bit into the past. When America had recently been born and society was
beginning to form, childhood had been considered a bit shorter. America went through the
Baby Boom and people were becoming parents at very young ages. This baby boom
occurred because the mother would be busy cleaning the house and having children. Once the
children were old enough they would move to the fields in order to provide for the family. Its
not exactly possible for someone to be going through childhood when they are pregnant or
have children. This was a time in American history that would increase the population within
the Americas and change society completely. The book The History of Childhood by Lloyd
deMause says, Through the emphasis in this period may seem to be more on the childs
obligation to his parents than on the parents responsibility to the child, a childs survival
then, as now, depended on the kind of physical care which he or she received. This means
that the children would generally have to fend for themselves and if they wanted to have a
successful and happy life they would need to provide and work hard to accomplish their

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goals. This quote clearly depicts a comparison as to then and now. In the past children were
finding their own ways through life independently. This caused the kids in the past to mature
without so much parental care and grow as adults much faster than the children in the world
today do.
I wanted to ensure that I had the question What is childhood? opened by another
person, Courtney Rothenberg. She was intrigued by this question when it was first asked
because she had think a lot about what childhood was to her.
Childhood is where the brain is developing, says Courtney. Most kids will be
making plenty of mistakes before they learn what is right from wrong. I was a kid and I can
remember when I would do bad things and it was my parents job to teach me what was
okay to do and what was not okay to do.
I never really thought about childhood as being scientific but this remark really
opened my eyes. When a persons brain is developing they might make unintelligent
decisions. Courtney also spoke about how family values were important to how a child
handles responsibility. When a child learns to be responsible with their family they
understand how to apply that to real responsibilities.
I would have to say that childhood is a word that can vary over time. Im not saying
the meaning changes because childhood is childhood. I am trying to point out that this word
will move with society. A child must learn what responsibility truly means and how the real
world functions. A child will begin to fall out of childhood when responsibility is met. I say
this word can change is because society is constantly changing and plenty of factors can
change when a persons childhood ends. When you are pushed out of the nest of your parents
and learn to fight for yourself in this battle of a world you begin to realize that childhood has
come to a close. This is not a bad sign but only a good sign that leads to a new door, a door
with a hot handle that no one looks forward to opening. This is the door to adulthood.

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Citations
DeMause, Lloyd. The History of Childhood. New York: Psychohistory, 1974. Print.
Hine, Thomas. The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager. New York: Bard, 1999. Print.
Rothenberg, Courtney. Personal Interview with Cody Loeper. 12 April 2015. Interview.
Linklater, Richard. Boyhood. IFC Productions. 2014