Seven: American Society's Obsession and Disdain for Children
This is the seventh in my theology and Taylor Swift’s Folklore series.
And I've been meaning to tell you
I think your house is haunted
Your dad is always mad and that must be why
And I think you should come live with
Me and we can be pirates
Then you won't have to cry
Or hide in the closet
And just like a folk song
Our love will be passed onPlease picture me
In the weeds
Before I learned civility
I used to scream ferociously
Any time I wanted- Taylor Swift “Seven.”
Then little children were being brought to him in order that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples spoke sternly to those who brought them; but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.” And he laid his hands on them and went on his way. -Matthew 19:13-15
Dominant American society has this obsession with the idea of children, while treating actual living children badly. On the one hand, childhood is associated with innocence and imagination. And there is tremendous pressure on those of us who are childfree and/or childless, to produce more kids in order to sustain our economic system.
And yet on the other hand, our society treats children horribly: especially poor children, BIPOC children, and disabled children. Our society talks about how important and wonderful children are and everyone who can needs to have children, and yet in practice children are abused, neglected, and discarded. American society likes the idea of children while hating the children that actually exist right in front of them.
Christians, part of the dominant religion in the US, have contributed to the horrific treatment of children. I mean look at those who often identify as pro-life and who are successfully, in some cases, seeking to make abortion illegal. These people love the idea of children, to the point that they value the potential life in the womb over the ACTUAL life of the pregnant, but when the baby is born, these so-called Christians are nowhere to be found.
In fact, they are often supporting politicians that make it difficult to raise and support kids. They support politicians who want to erode what little safety net we have, who view poverty as a moral failure, who often decry that those in poverty are having “so many” children, and who consistently devalue the lives of Black and brown children. Again, too many Christians love the idea of children, while in practice they contribute to a society that makes life a living hell for actual, living, breathing, children.
Taylor Swift’s “seven” captures a lot of the idealism and innocence that many of us associate with childhood. Playing, screaming, running around, and an abundance of imagination. But she hints at the fact that the reality of childhood isn’t just this pureness and innocence that society idealizes.
She hints at abuse, something which as a young child, she didn’t recognize or know to verbalize. Seven-year-old Taylor attributes her friend’s father’s anger to the house being haunted. And she suggests her friend come live with her and they can be pirates and her friend won’t have to suffer anymore.
And what strikes me about that part of the song is not only the seven-year old’s innocence about what her friend is going through-she knows something is wrong and wants to fix it, but can’t, but also what is left unsaid: if seven-year-old Taylor knows something is wrong-surely the adults in her and her friend’s life do as well. The song doesn’t capture whether or not the adults in their lives did anything. Maybe they did-maybe the adults were upstanding and caring and worked to protect the abused child.
But maybe, the adults did nothing. Because again, many adults love the idea of children, but they despise actual children. And when I talk about despising children, I am not talking about individuals who may not enjoy being around little kids for long periods of time or who do not want kids. I think kids are adorable, but I also know I can’t be a pre-school teacher or a parent. But I am talking about the general disdain society has for children acting like children and not like the idealized perfect child reinforced in most magazines, tv shows, films, and Instagram feeds.
The idealized child is easy to control, and they represent what the dominant society fetishizes in children -they are perfect, they wear the cute little outfits the parents put them in while standing still enough for adorable photos, they are neurotypical, able-bodied, white, born to a middle class, heterosexual couple. In this idealized version of childhood children are property to be controlled by parents.
But in real life-children are messy, loud, have big emotions, don’t always want to wear the cute little outfit parents spent tons of time picking out, don’t want to sit still for photos, and some are disabled, many aren’t white, (or the “right” type of white. Yeah white supremacy is a trip), and children are born to a variety of family types: single parents, queer, etc And of course, children aren’t property. They are actual human beings with their own needs and desires.
The ideal image of children that American society has contributes to the abuse and death of actual children. Children who don’t fit into this ideal-which let’s be honest, is most children, are discarded and their pain ignored by the dominant society.
Oh, they haven’t eaten dinner in two days? Well, their parents should have waited until they could afford to have kids. Oh, Black and brown kids are disproportionately imprisoned for minor crimes? Well, they should learn to behave. Oh, queer children are more likely to commit suicide? Well, that’s because they are going against God’s “natural design” for humanity. Oh, children are being abused by their parents. “I mean every kid deserves a good slap every now and then.”
Christians often endorse this mindset as well. They take verses such as Proverbs 13:24 and turn it into their personal parental motto: “Those who spare the rod hate their children,
but those who love them are diligent to discipline them.”
They take verses such as Matthew 19:13-15 and interpret it as stating that God wants us to have a “childlike” faith: innocent, pure, and obedient. Again, they reinforce this idealized version of children that no one can actually fulfill, while ignoring that Jesus’ embrace of children, fits along with his larger theme of God’s kingdom ushering in an upside-down world.
Children, who then and now, are often viewed as property and lowly on the socio-political hierarchical order, are being embraced by God and held up as examples to be emulated not because they fit into some idealized notion of how good children behave, but because God, throughout the Biblical text, demonstrates, again and again, a commitment to the marginalized.
God, again and again in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, elevates those who are considered in society to be lowly and unimportant. God doesn’t ask for imperfection but for justice for all of God’s children-including literal children.
So let's ditch the idealized version of children that American society perpetrates and let's take care and love the children we have here and now.
