The Disappearance of Childhood

151 Pages·2017·0.78 MB·English

by  Neil Postman

NEIL POSTMAN
The Disappearance of Childhood

Neil Postman is a critic, communications theorist, and Chair of the
Department of Communication Arts and Sciences at New York University. In
1987 he was given the George Orwell Award for Clarity in Language by the
National Council of Teachers of English. In 1989 he received the Distinguished
Professor Award at New York University. In the spring of 1991 he was Laurence
Lombard Visiting Professor of the Press and Public Policy at Harvard University.
For ten years he was editor of Et Cetera, the journal of General Semantics. His
seventeen previous books include Teaching as a Subversive Activity (with
Charles Weingartner), Amusing Ourselves to Death, Conscientious Objections,
and Technopoly. He is currently writing a book called Reinventing Education.
ALSO BY NEIL POSTMAN

Technopoly

Conscientious Objections

Teaching as a Subversive Activity

(with Charles Weingartner)

Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk

Teaching as a Conserving Activity

Amusing Ourselves to Death

FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, AUGUST 1994

Copyright © 1982, 1994 by Neil Postman

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of
Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random
House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in slightly
different form by Delacorte, Press, New York, in 1982.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

Data Postman, Neil.
The disappearance of childhood/Neil Postman.—1st Vintage Books ed.
p. cm.
Originally published: New York: Delacorte Press, 1982. With new preface.
eISBN: 978-0-307-79722-3
1. Children. 2. Mass media and children. 3. Children and adults. I. Title.
HQ767.9.P67 1994
305.23—dc20 94-16385
v3.1
To Shelley
Contents

Cover
About the Author
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Preface to the Vintage Edition
Introduction

PART 1. THE INVENTION OF CHILDHOOD
Chapter 1. When There Were No Children
Chapter 2. The Printing Press and the New Adult
Chapter 3. The Incunabula of Childhood
Chapter 4. Childhood’s Journey
PART 2. THE DISAPPEARANCE OF CHILDHOOD
Chapter 5. The Beginning of the End
Chapter 6. The Total Disclosure Medium
Chapter 7. The Adult-Child
Chapter 8. The Disappearing Child
Chapter 9. Six Questions
Notes
Bibliography
Preface to the Vintage Edition

In preparing myself to write a new preface to this re-publication of a twelve-
year-old book, I reacquainted myself with it in considerable detail. This was not
an unpleasant task, since of all the books I have written, this one has always
been my favorite. But I was not inclined to pamper it. I was especially looking
for predictions, either implied or stated, that have turned out to be wrong. My
intention was to tell the reader that I had made these errors and then use this
edition as an opportunity to correct them. Believe it or not, I was hoping to find a
few important mistakes. The book, after all, has a rather sad theme, made all the
more unpalatable by the fact that it offers no strong solutions to the problem it
raises—in fact, no solutions at all. If at least some trends toward the
disappearance of childhood had been stayed or reversed since the book was
written, I would have been delighted. It would bring no shame to me or the book
to say something I thought would happen did not; that something I knew to be
happening is no longer happening.
As it is, I must let the book stand as I wrote it in the late 1970s and early
1980s. Of course some of the examples I gave as evidence of the erosion of the
line between childhood and adulthood will be unfamiliar to young readers. They
will have to supply their own, of which there are now many more to choose.
More than more. The examples one would have available today have a kind of
arrogant relevance that I would not have expected a few years ago. To put it
plainly, the book set out to describe where the idea of childhood came from, why
it flourished for 350 years, and why it is rapidly disappearing. My re-reading of
the book, sad to say, leads me to change nothing of importance in it. What was
happening then is happening now. Only worse.
But I have learned something about the subject over the past twelve years
that compels me to add something that is not in the book. I would not have
believed it could have been in the book. But I am glad to make an amendment
here.
Over the past twelve years, many teachers, from elementary school through
university, have discussed the arguments and evidence offered in this book with
their students. And some of those students have written letters to me expressing
their views on the matter. I have been particularly interested in the opinions of
students in the fifth and sixth grades, since they are at an age at which children
would not only be suffering the effects of an early unwanted adulthood but could
talk about them, even reflect on them. Such students also tend to be direct and
economical in their style, having not yet been encouraged to use language to
conceal their thoughts. For example, a girl named Narielle concluded her short
letter by saying that my ideas were “weird.” A boy named Jack said, “I think
your essay wasn’t very good. Childhood doesn’t disappear—snap!—like that.”
Joseph wrote, “Childhood does not disappear because you watch TV, I think
childhood is wasted by going to school five days a week. In my opinion, that is
too much. Childhood is too precious to go to school more than half a week.”
Tina wrote, “When you’re a kid, you don’t really have to worry about
responsibility. Kids get to play around more.” John wrote, “I think 18 is the
correct age for becoming an adult.” Patty: “I don’t think that if a ten-year-old kid
watches an adult show then that kid is never a child again.” Andy: “Most kids
who watch TV shows know they are not real.”
There are, of course, many things to learn from such comments, but their
main lesson for me is that children themselves, are a force in preserving
childhood. Not a political force, certainly. But a kind of moral force. In these
matters, perhaps we can call them a moral majority. Children, it would seem, not
only know there is value in being different from adults, but care that a distinction
be made; they know, perhaps better than adults, that something terribly important
is lost if that distinction is blurred.
I will stand by the theme of the book: American culture is hostile to the idea
of childhood. But it is a comforting, even exhilirating thought that children are
not.
NEIL POSTMAN
New York City
1994