O. Nieuwenhuys
May 1, 2006
Citations
0
Influential Citations
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Citations
Journal
Childhood
Abstract
childhood studies. Paradoxically so, for among the middle and higher urban classes in the world the child is so powerfully surrounded with objects made purposefully for gift-giving that one may safely state that the reception of gifts is one of the constitutive elements of modern childhood. Gift-giving to children is embedded in complex cycles of reciprocity among kindred adults and friends. Typical of childhood gifts are, however, that they obey strict rules of asymmetry centring on the responsible adult who, in the act of giving to a child, engages in one of the purest forms of altruism. If this type of altruism does not turn the child into the summit of egoism, it is because the gift is luckily not as altruistic as portrayed. As anthropologists since Marcel Mauss have been contending, the gift inevitably carries an indefinite obligation to reciprocate with more and is the powerful generator of the logic of exchange at the heart of all social relationships. The gathering of adult relatives around the cradle of the newborn child to present him or her with mostly redundant objects is in this view not as innocent as it may seem. Nor is Christmas, with its ritual of lavish spending of hard-earned money on a mass of toys that children will soon either break or discard, for their rooms are already too full and their games already too crowded with objects. As lavish gifts in time inevitably turn into disproportionate obligations towards the givers, anthropologists have also often remarked that, in an attempt to reduce future claims, receivers tend to treat gifts with some disdain. Many a disappointed adult who has given an important gift to a child only to see it lying unused in a corner will easily testify that children are generally no exception to this rule. I would add wisely so, for the celebration of childhood is short-lived and as soon as the child starts nearing the threshold leading him or her into adulthood, things start turning sour. At the family level, teens may then find themselves routinely the object of adult accusations of laziness, sloppiness, ingratitude, indifference and so on. At the level of society, ‘youth’ seems to be the source of perennial anxiety for its potential to disrupt the established social and moral order. While giving to young children is one of adults’ most gratifying experiences, giving lavishly to