Would you prefer having children in the ’50s? in the ’70s?
- katiaroymsg
- May 14, 2020
- 3 min read
Updated: May 31, 2020
Education and parenthood are constantly evolving and questioned. The traditional model of
education - the authoritarianism of the '50s and the destructuring permissiveness (laxity)
of the '70s turned out to be completely ineffective nowadays.
Let’s revisit the past… in the ’50s, '60s and ’70s.
A multitude of events happened and changed the relationship between parents and children forever.
- In 1952: Psychoprophylactic childbirth (More commonly called painless birth or epidural), developed in the USSR in 1952 by Prof. Nikolaiev and based on the doctrine of physiologist Pavlov. It is a technique based on the discovery of the intervention of the higher nervous system. Its goal is to reduce or even eliminate the pain related to childbirth. Dr Lamaze, an obstetrician in Paris (France), used this method since 1952. The epidural became available in the UK in 1968.
- In 1956: the invention of the contraceptive pill in the United States by Dr Gregory Pincus. He developed with his team a combination of progesterone and synthetic estrogen (female hormones), a hormonal drug which blocks ovulation. It was the first pill, called Enovid. This pill was commercialised first in the Federal Republic of Germany. Before the United States, the country which invented, in 1960. The NHS introduced it in 1961, in the UK for married women only (until 1967) and finally commercialised in France in 1967.
- The decline in arranged marriages due to the decrease of agricultural work and the explosion of the industrialisation. Beforehand, unions in the farming world were mostly arranged for land exchanges.
- In 1960: During the '60s, numerous job creations in the tertiary sector favoured the increase in the women activity rate. The complexity of businesses and the shift in demand from households to market services led to strong growth in jobs considered female (secretaries, saleswomen, nurses).
Work is usually a source of guilt which drastically influences education.
- In 1968: The year of protests who comprised a worldwide escalation of social conflicts mainly against authoritarianism, among other reasons like capitalism, sexism, racism, imperialism, revisionism. The most spectacular manifestation of these was the 'May 1968' protests in France. The Revolt of the youth, with the slogan: "It is forbidden to forbid."
Leading us to a total laxity in education.
- At the end of '60s and '70s: The abortion for non-medical reasons is allowed and legalised. In the United Kingdom, the abortion act of 1967 clarified and prescribed abortions as legal up to 28 weeks (later reduced to 24 weeks). Other countries soon followed, including Canada (1969), the United States (1973 in most of the States), Tunisia (1973), Denmark (1973), Austria (1974), France (1975), Sweden (1975), New Zealand (1977), Italy (1978).
Due to these inventions and events, having children or not become a choice.
We went from the unwanted child to the wanted child. The children are now wanted, and the power relationship reversed.
Children used to have to win their parents' love, when today, parents have to earn their children's love.
Do you notice the pattern? A particular form of emotional dependence that leads many parents into an educational roadblock? Guilt and worry that their children will stop loving them, so they avoid to frustrate them: the conflict. In the longer run, it creates a lack of framework or limits.
We ended up with a new generation of insecure children practising the law of the jungle, the law of the stronger.
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