Enzo Cricchio
Ms. Gibson
English 8
9 November, 2020
The American Childhood Now Versus the 1850’s
The American childhood today is vastly different to one that would be lived by a kid in the mid 1800’s. Many kids today don’t get the kind of freedom to do what they want that kids 170 years ago had. Parents knew that if their kids got into trouble they could get themselves out. Mark Twain makes this clear in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Childhood for kids in America has changed so much it’s become hard for kids to imagine what it would be like 170 years ago, however kids are still able to enjoy the book.
In the book Tom and Huck are able to go around town doing whatever they want. They cross the Mississippi using only a raft. Tom and Huck spend all afternoon exploring a cave by themselves in search of treasure. Tom says,”It’s about five miles into there the way nobody but me would go” (Twain 300). Five miles is a long way to travel, with no supervision, and having not told his parents where he would be. Nowadays, streets are more dangerous, which makes parents more reluctant to let their kids play around town. However, back in the mid-1800’s, small towns and villages were spaced far apart from others. There was a close community, and everybody knew each other. Twain says, ”By the time Ben was fragged out, Tom had traded the next chance to Billy Fisher for a kite in good repair; and when he played out, Johnny Miller bought in for a dead rat and a string to swing with; and so on, and so on, hour after hour” (Twain 18). Tom wouldn’t have been able to trade with all the boys if he hadn’t known them before.
My grandfather grew up in Brooklyn in the 50’s. There he would get into fights with other kids; there was crime, and some of the people he went to school with had parents involved in Mafias around the city. But he still knew everyone in the neighborhood, much like Tom did. My dad grew up in Columbia, Missouri in the 80’s, and every Saturday would meet with his friends, and they would ride their bikes two miles to the mall and spend the day there. He too, was good friends with most everyone in the neighborhood. Living standards and social norms were different, but up until the turn of the century, the American childhood was still somewhat similar to the one that Tom would have experienced. The way people interacted really changed following the rise of the tech era.
From the year 2000 up until 2020, there was email, internet, online games, texting, smartphones, and apps like facetime. Childhoods have changed because now you don’t need to walk to your friends house; you could just Facetime them. Why ride your bike to the mall when you could just buy whatever you wanted off of Amazon. No need to play outside, just play on your computer. The more kids were able to interact with each other through a screen the less they would want to do so in person. This caused some kids to become anti-social, and spend all day in their room playing video games. This meant that some of the hallmarks of childhood that Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and many other people experienced disappeared.
Part of what makes The Adventures of Tom Sawyer so enjoyable was because it reminded people of what being a kid was like. However, young people are still able to enjoy the story because it reminds them of memories similar to what happens in the book. Even though it may be hard for kids to relate to some of the things Tom did in the book, young people are still able to enjoy it.
Works Cited
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Penguin Group, 1876.