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«pricing the priceless child»*

* For an elaboration of the theme of this text, see «The Genesis of the Modem Toy,» in Pan III.

by Viviana A. Zelizer

I will argue that the expulsion of children from the «cash nexus»** at the turn of the past century, although clearly shaped by profound changes in the economic, occupational, and family structures, was

5    also part of a cultural process of«sacralization»  of children's lives. The term sacralization is used in the

        sense of objects being invested with sentimental or religious meaning. While in the nineteenth century the market value of children was culturally acceptable, later the new normative ideal of the child as an

exclusively emotional and  affective asset precluded instrumental or fiscal considerations. In an increasingly commercialized world, children were reserved a separate, noncommercial place. The economic and sentimental value of children were thereby declared to be radically incompatible. Only mercenary or

insensitive parents violated the boundary by accepting the wages orlabor contributions of useful child. Properly loved children, regardless of social class, belonged in a domesticated, nonproductive world of lessons, games, and token money. It was not a simple process. At every step working class and middle-class

advocates of a useful childhood battled the social construction of the economically useless child.

** Cash nexus — the money system

 

Exercise:

1.According to the American College Dictionary, «asset» (1.9) means «a useful thing or a quality» — or — «an item of property.»

a. What definition seems to apply here?

b. The writer is being ironical when he modifies the word «asset» with the terms «exclusively emotional» and «affective.» (Usually we expect our «assets» to have qualities of a very different sort.) Who, or what, do you suppose he is poking fun at here? (I.e., which social classes can afford to hold on to «exclusively emotional» and useless property? Which one cannot?)

2. What is the implied connection between the fact that the world was being «increasingly commercialized» (1.10) and the fact that people who could afford to live without their children's «wages or labor contributions» (1.15) began to insist that «chirdren...belonged in a domesticated, nonproductive world of lessons, games, and token money» (11.16-18)?

3. «Properly loved children» (1.16)

a. Who (or what social class) decided what the «proper» way to love a child was? (Can there be any one «proper» way to love?)

b. Which social classes had other ideas about this?

4. How has the writer previously prepared us to understand the last sentence as implying that a «useful childhood» is not necessarily a bad thing, while an «economically useless child» is not necessarily good thing?

 

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