Anxious Parents (Magill’s Literary Annual 2004)
At a glance:
- Author: Peter N. Stearns
- Type of Work: History and sociology
- Time of Work: The twentieth century
- Setting: The United States
- Principal Characters: Benjamin Spock, B. F. Skinner, Rudolf Dreikurs, William James, Martha Wolfenstein
- Subjects: United States or Americans, Twentieth century, Twenty-first century
Caring for children has always aroused parental anxiety. According to Apollonius Rhodius’s Argonautica (third century b.c.e.; English translation, 1780), Thetis and Peleus separated because Peleus disapproved of his wife’s attempts to render their son Achilles immortal. Peleus feared that her efforts would kill this child, as she had their first six; she thought that he was ignoring her maternal concern to protect the infant. Stearns sees particular worries among twentieth century parents, though, resulting from changed perceptions of the nature of childhood. Viewed in the...
[The entire page is 2035 words long]
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