Not only can childhood be variously defined with respect to historical periods but its meaning in contemporary discourse is also multiple. Child 1 is the child of one or more parents; it is not a matter of age. People with beliefs in an afterlife may feel they continue as Child 1 after their parents have passed away. Indeed, the entire history of ancestor-worship rests on positioning all persons as Child 1. It is a position that calls forth respect for tradition, gratitude, duty and sacrifice. Child 2 is the person of an age at which adult rights and responsibilities have not been bestowed: the default position identified above. In Britain, the status of Child 2 runs from birth to 18 (though it varies somewhat according to context). Being positioned as Child 2 bestows protection at the cost of individual freedom; it implies lack of readiness and a period of constrained preparation but with few responsibilities. Only the youngest sector of the population has Child 2 status. Child 3 is the novice, he or she who is relatively incapable or uncivilized: who has ‘not yet learnt’ or is ‘not yet ready’. We speak with sympathy of the young mother, or victim of disease who is ‘just a child herself’; of the poor football team pitched against Manchester United as ‘boys against men’, and the British used to call male servants ‘boy’ in Colonial times. Child 3 status calls forth condescension. A Child 3 has responsibilities but limited means to undertake them. We are all Child 3 from time to time. It is important to make these distinctions because discussions about the conception of childhood can all-too-easily proceed on partial assumptions. For example, Ariès (1962) argues that pre-modern societies had little or nothing of our conception of Child 2, but they certainly acknowledged Child 3, and there is plenty of evidence (beyond Ariès’ brief) that they have acknowledged Child 1 since time immemorial and may do so less now than hitherto.

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If we are to aim for any progression in our conceptions of childhood, we must acknowledge their existing variety. In particular, we should be wary of attributing a one-dimensional, all-or-nothing character to childhood, particularly as purely Child 2. Such a reductionist view is in the interest of neither ‘child’ nor adult, and I will consider how contemporary society balances these three conceptions of what it means to be a child against the Aristotelian, Puritan, Liberal and Romantic assumptions that have influenced our thinking about childhood generally. I shall conclude that over-adherence to several of these assumptions runs counter to the Zeitgeist, and that existing models of schooling and attitudes to children in general have been insufficiently responsive to other social changes.