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Examine the View That Childhood Is Not a Fixed Universal Experience.

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Childhood has never been a fixed universal experience; it is not considered a universal experience because everyone lives in a different environments. They deal with parents single, together, or in the middle of divorce.

In some cultures children to be married and forced into having children before they even turn 13. Because in that society are not considered as children when they hit a certain age, even if it is only around 10 or 12. In some tribes the parents stop providing for the child when it turns five years old, at that age it is expected to look after themselves and if it cannot and is eaten by a predator they do not care as it as the infants responsibility to look after itself. In other tribes around the world women who have children and become a mother do not enjoy the role, they barely keep their children alive and most of the time hopes for a wolf to take it away. So that they are no other burdened by a child.

All parents raise their children differently to the next. People are raised with different morals cultures, beliefs, influences and norms. Each culture has their opinions on what is considered to me expected and accepted. Not only that, but as we grow, we form our own identities. Through out our teen years we start to disagree with our parents, even before that we have friends and peers who influence our decisions as well as people we meet as a result. Think of childhood as something with no absolutes. Childhood cannot be fixed because everyone leads different lives, surrounded by people with different experiences. While there can be similarities between experiences, there are rarely any people who lead exactly the same life.

As you can see childhood is not a fixed universal experience because there are many different cultures around the world and they have different norms and values from us. For us a child is not an adult and cannot make any independent decisions before the age of 18 and therefore have a long childhood. Whereas in some countries and tribes infants don’t have the luxury of a childhood and have to be independent before their time.

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