Childhood then and now

My favorite thrift store has a couple of cardboard boxes outside before entering the store. The boxes contain books and other items offered free to shoppers. Just before Thanksgiving the giveaway box had a book by Doris Kearns Goodwin, one of my favorite historians. I immediately grabbed it.

“Wait till Next Year” is a memoir of Goodwin’s days growing up in the 50s. I suspect some of you can relate to those times. Doris, and most of her friends (boys and girls) in the neighborhoods of New York, were avid baseball fans, loyal to either the Yankees, Giants or the Brooklyn Dodgers. In those days before stadium lighting was prevalent most games were played in the daytime, so Doris’s dad taught her how to keep score of baseball games and, after dinner, Doris would recite, batter by batter, the outcome of the Dodgers game. It was nostalgic reading about players I remember from that era. Baseball was part of their lives.

But the book describes other aspects of her childhood. Before television, children played both indoor and outdoor games like Red Rover and Dodgeball, or hopscotch and card games. They rode bicycles with playing cards attached to the spokes (if you have to ask why, you obviously weren’t a child in this era) and played pickup games of baseball, hide and seek or reenacted movies or stories they had read.

Even when television came along the dictate in my house was that you came home from school, did your homework, then had to go outside to play, often until dinnertime. I remember my idyllic growing up years pretty much like Doris describes hers.

Growing up today is vastly different. Back then, most moms stayed home while most dads left home to work. Today, two-thirds of two-parent households have both parents working, compared to only 31 percent in 1970. And 25 percent of today’s children grow up in single parent homes. 63 percent of those are Black, 42 percent Latino and 24 percent are white.

Today’s child is more worldly. Common Sense Media says 42 percent of children have smartphones by age 10; 71 percent by age 12 and 96 percent by age 14. That’s not always good.

The American Academy of Child and Adolescence Psychiatry says that children 8 to 10 spend 6 hours a day watching screens. Ages 11-14 spend 9 hours and 15-18 devote 7.5 hours a day watching screens. Additionally, a recent study reveals 34 percent of children report they do not play outdoors on school days; 20 percent don’t on weekends. There are repercussions.

Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy reports that 26 percent of boys aged 11-17 report being lonely. Education Week collaborates that 21 percent of children 13-17 report experiencing loneliness. 32 percent of children are diagnosed with anxiety at some point. Some 11.4 percent or 7 million children ages 3 -17 are diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, an increase of 1 million from 2016. Further, The Journal of Pediatrics says that children with smartphones by age 12 have a higher risk of depression, obesity and insufficient sleep than those who don’t.

And the expectations placed on children is vastly different.

Do you remember your mother or dad reading books to you, especially at night before bedtime? Goodwin recalls hearing Rudyard Kipling’s Just So stories and the Blue Biography childhood books about famous Americans. I loved the Dick and Jane books helping us learn to read in first grade. I have a copy of them in my library. AI says 77% of children ages 0–5 are read to regularly, while only 37% of 6–8 year-olds are read to. Parents believe their children can read on their own. It is expected that children leaving kindergarten can read at elementary levels. But not all can.

Today’s schools are much different. Testing and accountability expectations have turned our schools almost into factories where we have specific expectations for each age level for reading, math, science and other subjects. We’re putting a lot of pressure on our children.

Former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan reports there are warning signs we should not dismiss. He says that students at every grade level are slipping academically, not just because of the pandemic.  Duncan says our 4^th graders are struggling with basic reading. Our 8^th grade science scores have declined, and 12^th graders perform at generational lows in both reading and math. Colleges and universities confirm Duncan’s assertions, reporting the amount of remedial work high school graduates need to do college work has multiplied.

Growing up wasn’t all fun and games during the 50s, but it certainly is more complicated and requires much different approaches today. Just from the data we cited it is obvious that if we expect this generation of children to grow into emotionally and intellectually healthy adults who thrive, changes are urgently needed.

Tom Campbell is a Hall of Fame North Carolina broadcaster and columnist who has covered North Carolina public policy issues since 1965.  Contact him at tomcamp@ncspin.com