ABSTRACT
This chapter explores children’s discourse about childhood, in relation to motherhood, fatherhood and child-parent relationships. A key concept guiding this enquiry is the observation that ‘child’ has to be understood as a relational concept (Aries 1972). We can distinguish at least three sets of relationships. Children are those identified by adults as non-adults, so the social world that adults construct consists of two groups with somewhat separate interests and relationships to the social order. Secondly, children’s lives are structured by adults-by their interests, understandings and goals; the social condition of childhood is defined through adult-child relations mediated through these interests, understandings and goals. Thirdly, the family and to a lesser extent the school operates on the basis of personal including affective relationships between adults and children. Thus, the permanent social category childhood can be seen as structured in relation to adulthood.
