Childism: Confronting Prejudice Against Children

In this brilliant, provocative book, award-winning author and psychoanalyst Young-Bruehl (Hannah Arendt: For the Love of the World) exposes American society’s prejudice against its children—“childism”—and the harm it causes them. Analyzing the social and legal development of childism in the wake of the 1960s youth protest movements, the author urges us to think about the huge range of antisocial policies and individual behavior directed against all children daily, from corporal punishment and an uncaring foster care system to the pressure placed on children to support one parent or another in a divorce. To begin reversing childism, she points to the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of the Child and a reinforcing convention on children’s rights, which state that children have human rights, that they are not “possessions” of adults, and that adults and governments have an obligation to children. The documents call for, among other things, reducing child poverty and providing every child with the means and the education to develop healthily and freely. It also advocates children’s participation in familial and communal life to the extent of their evolving abilities. Painting a world where thousands of children die every day from neglect, hunger, and war, Young-Bruehl’s book is a clarion call for urgent action. (Jan.)