Tomboys and Little Pickles - Views of Childhood in Children's Fiction by Pauline Chandler
On Facebook this week, Guardian Teen Books was asking ‘Where
are all the girls in adventure-ready trousers ’ in children’s books today. If
you can think of any, they want to know.
Why? Thought we’d won that battle.
I recommended my battle-ready girls, Joan of Arc’s friend,
Mariane, Viking girl, Beren, and Aoife, my Druid elephant keeper
but I don’t
think they meant our heroines from past ages.
No, what they had in mind, I think, was feisty
tomboys, girls ready to explore and jump from rock to rock and light fires, capable,
brave, self-sufficient and hardy. That sort of thing.
Well, where are they,
then, and why is the Guardian asking? Are they suggesting that writers practise some kind of social
manipulation, by inventing a certain kind of female role model? Mm.
It set me thinking about the role children’s books play in
children’s lives. Do they reflect them, exploring real problems, or do they actually
mould them, to promote desirable social values? If they do that, should they?
These are the words of a song in a 19thc. book called ‘Children’s
Voices’.
Little Pickle
I am a pickle all the week
To Saturday from Monday
But beg to state I am sedate
When I’m in church on Sunday
I bang my gingham all the week
To Saturday from Monday
But beg to state I hold it straight
When I’m in church on Sunday
I cry and grin
Week out, week in
To Saturday from Monday
But please observe I never swerve
To right or left on Sunday
I love this for its show of affection for the child, but
there are things about it that I don’t like at all. It strikes me as a form of indoctrination,
adults’ rules couched in the child’s own words, in the deceptively pleasant form
of a little song. Of course the
Victorians are well known for taking a didactic approach in children’s books:
Mrs Do-As-You-Would-Be-Done-By, I remember you well.
What about the books of my own childhood, all those girls’
annuals of the 1950s and 60s? Judy,
School Friend, Bunty and Girl.
Did it do me any harm?
Maybe, in the promotion of men, as the protectors and sine qua non of
women’s lives. At 16, I loved the idea! I
wanted to be a secretary, with frilly skirts and a bouffant, and have my hair
done every week at the hairdresser’s, until my father put a stop such notions. (Bless you, Dad!)
The stories showed a glamorous life, one I was being encouraged to aspire to, but
not the academic one I was heading for. The careers depicted
for girls, in these books, made a short list: nursing, ballerina, secretary, working
with animals, mother and housewife.
Was it the same for boys? Probably. Now i can see what a hard load that might have been for blokes to carry, having to be the responsible
sex, making all the decisions, having to ‘be a man’, win the bread and steer
the ship.
Have things changed?
I hope so, but if the Guardian are raising the issue, maybe they haven’t
so much. And do children’s writers really think about such things when they invent their characters?
Pauline Chandler
www.paulinechandler.com
Comments
There's no way of knowing how such conditioning affects people. Not much in my case, I think, though I can't be sure. It would be interesting to hear other children's authors' opinions about this.
If a child grows up in a violent home, it's being conditioned. Mrs. Do-As-You-Would-Be-Done-By is surely an example of benign conditioning - I can certainly think of worse attitudes to condition a child to.
And how can a writer ever escape their own time/beliefs/social conditioning? Even if you think you are writing a book with very edgy, new, advanced ideas - then you're acting on, or reacting to your own time/beliefs and social conditioning. - In another 50-100 years, the pendulum will swing and the 'obvious truths' will be something else.
How much do these things matter? I don't know. I was a huge fan of pony, ballet and girls' school stories, none of which bore any realtion to my own life circumstances. (Not to mention those odd 'career' books like 'Cherry Ames Student Nurse)' But I don't remember ever wanting to emulate the heroines - or rage against them. I just liked the stories!