Deconstructing Conventional Notions of Childhood - The Domination of Adults over Children - Assignment Example

We come across an article about exploitative child labour in India (Kala 2006), or we read a story about young boys taking up arms and getting killed in Afghanistan (Maier 2002) or those babies who have gone terribly hungry in Ethiopia (Associated Press, 2008). Our British perspective, where views about children and childhood are confined basically to education and play and comfortable homes, might find it hard to imagine that childhood, as we see it, is not a universal concept. But the situation being geographically remote, it would hardly shake the foundations of our perceptions of children and childhood and would be so easy to dismiss.

But not when the story is in our midst and one that questions the conventional notions that we have always ascribe to.Such is the case when we come across stories like Why no child is safe from the sinister cult of emo. The initial impression that one has from reading this article is that of intrigue and interest, that such horror – suicide – can happen to someone so young and, by all accounts, living quite a normal, happy life. And then there’s the culprit – a ‘sinister cult’ – which a lot of young people are getting into because it’s the trend, the cool thing.

The story is not more than several months old from today and happened not too far from where we are right now. The recentness and the geographical closeness make it an extremely disturbing subject that anyone would find difficult to dismiss. The idea that this could be the story of anyone we know – and it certainly happened to people within our own society, our own culture – magnifies the issue, makes sinister more alarming, the child more vulnerable.