ABSTRACT
This chapter will be concerned with two themes which are closely associated with being a child: playing, and being subject to adult authority. Some of the (adult) speakers in Chapter 3 suggested that ‘play’ was a defining charac teristic of childhood, and that the loss of opportunities for children to play portends the potential disappearance of childhood itself. However, one commentator who strongly rejects the idea that childhood is disappearing from contemporary society highlights a different core characteristic of this age-phase, in view of children’s economic dependence. ‘To be a child’, writes Hood-Williams (1990: 163), ‘seems commonly to be an “immediate” rela tionship of command and obedience; notwithstanding the variety in the exercise of command and the forms of compliance.’
