ABSTRACT
A child’s body is at first sight characterized by its smaller size, slightly different anatomical proportions, less physical strength or as-yet insufficiently developed control over the body’s senso-motoric functions or speech organs. The child’s precarious health, most impressively manifest in the high infant mortality rates at the beginning of the eighteenth century, its need for a special diet, feeding aids and toilet training provide additional evidence for the assumption that children are not in full possession of their bodies in more than one sense: neither are children’s bodies fully grown, nor can they completely control their bodies. A child’s body, therefore, expresses most vividly the lack ascribed to childhood. nevertheless, a child’s body can also signify potential and growth for the future. The notions of development and growth induce attempts to mould or fashion the child’s body, taking advantage of its malleability in order to create what Foucault has described as ‘docile bodies’.1
