{"id":72786,"date":"2021-01-13T12:38:12","date_gmt":"2021-01-13T17:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=72786"},"modified":"2025-08-19T09:37:17","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T13:37:17","slug":"joe-biden-kamala-harris-american-childhood","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/joe-biden-kamala-harris-american-childhood\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Biden and Kamala Harris could transform American childhood"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Joe Biden and Kamala Harris could transform American childhood\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

Inauguration Day approaches in the United States after a bitterly divisive election and the unprecedented events surrounding the confirmation of Joe Biden\u2019s electoral college victory<\/a>. The world is waiting to see what changes a Joe Biden\/Kamala Harris administration might bring to the beleaguered nation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many believe that the president-elect bears the responsibility for the future of American democracy<\/a>, while others assert that what\u2019s at stake is the fate of the nation\u2019s scientific capacity<\/a> to respond both to the pandemic and to the climate crisis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As researchers who study childhood, we believe that the new administration could also play an important role in determining the future of another important ideal \u2014 the \u201cAmerican child<\/a>.\u201d What happens over the next four years could have a lasting impact on how childhood is understood and experienced in the United States and beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inventing the \u2018American child\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Children were central to political debate throughout the 2020 presidential election. From unfounded fears of a bogus child-trafficking conspiracy<\/a> to inspiring messages of possibility and equity<\/a>, the child was an important campaign tool for winning hearts and minds on both ends of the political spectrum. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Yale psychologist William Kessen pointed out more than four decades ago, the \u201cAmerican child<\/a>\u201d at the heart of these debates is a cultural invention. What Kessen was pointing out was that childhood is not an undisputed truth, but a malleable and changing social construct. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the U.S., and in the western world more broadly, one of the most common beliefs about childhood has been that it should be a universal time of innocence<\/a>, or separation from \u201cadult\u201d realities like work, politics and war. This belief became widespread in the late 19th century when concern over the living and working conditions of the poor led to a crusade for child protection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The preservation of childhood innocence became a guiding factor for laws and policies on child care, education and labour. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Questioning innocence<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In recent decades, this assumption of innocence has increasingly been recognized as a myth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Particularly in 2020, given the twin crises of the COVID-19 pandemic and police violence<\/a> in the U.S., it\u2019s clear that few people, including children, escape adversity. Yet innocence is a persistent fantasy that has real consequences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the articles featured in the newest issue of Curriculum Inquiry<\/em><\/a> illustrate, the myth of childhood innocence is continually employed as a political tool that diminishes difficult lived experiences, limits historical understanding and shapes social interactions. In other words, advocating for the protection of innocence does not actually protect children. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we observe in the issue\u2019s editorial<\/a>, when childhood innocence is held up as an unquestioned ideal, its politics \u2014 the colonial and racist beliefs and practices on which it is founded \u2014 are erased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More specifically, campaigning for the protection childhood innocence can be understood as an act of preserving white supremacy<\/a>, as seen numerous times in outgoing President Donald Trump\u2019s political rhetoric. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strict immigration policies<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 2016, Trump campaigned on strict immigration policies<\/a>, in part, he claimed, as a response to the loss of innocent lives due to insecure borders. He described the need to control future immigration as an obligation to the American children of newcomers \u201cto ensure assimilation, integration and upward mobility.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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