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Throughout most of the nineteenth and the first half of the
twentieth century, the
raising of a child has been seen as a process of training it,
guiding it into proper
paths, and teaching it to conform. Socializing the child in this
way is still thought
of by most people as the only model upon which the discussion of
child care can be
based. It has been the source of all twentieth century
psychological models of child
care from Freud's "channelling of impulses", to Skinner's
"behaviourism". Since the mid twentieth century we have begun to see a new form of child care evolve. This involves the proposition that the child knows better than the parent what it needs at each stage of its life. This new mode of child rearing fully involves both parents in the child's life as they both work to empathize with and fulfil the child's expanding and particular needs. There is no attempt at all to discipline or form "habits". Children are neither struck nor scolded, and are apologized to if yelled at under stress. This empathic model of child care involves an enormous amount of time, energy, and discussion on the part of both parents, especially in the earliest years. Helping a young child reach its daily goals means continually responding to it, playing with it, tolerating its regressions, and being its servant, rather than the other way around... What kind of society might be envisioned by children brought up the latest childrearing mode -- what I have termed the helping mode -- whereby both parents try to help their children reach their own goals at each stage of life, rather than socializing it into adult goals -- is yet to be seen. I suspect it will be far less class-centered and more empathic of others than is the socializing modern world we are familiar with...
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