Children in Western Knowledge Systems

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which came into effect in 1990, is a significant formal codification of particular understandings of children. Through the 54 articles that define and describe the rights of children and young people, children and young people are constructed as active and empowered bearers of rights.  

The preface to a book published by Unicef (1994) titled I dream of peace: Images of War by Children of Former Yugoslavia, begins with the following quote from children’s author Maurice Sendak:

The children know. They have always known. But we choose to think otherwise: it hurts to know the children know. The children see. If we obfuscate, they will not see. Thus we conspire to keep them from knowing and seeing. And if we insist, then the children, to please us, will make believe they do not know, they do not see. Children make that sacrifice for our sake - to keep up pacified. They are remarkable–patient, loving, and all-forgiving. It is a sad comedy: the children knowing and pretending they don’t know to protect us from knowing they know.

There are many aspects to Sendak's writing that could be disentangled and considered. From a historical perspective, any overarching generalisations of people can be fraught – who are the ’we’, ‘us’ and ’The children’  invoked in this case? And what types of things might ‘They have always known’? Posing these questions is not meant to destroy Sendak’s poetry or oppose a lyrical expression of ideas - but - when analysing histories, experiences, memories and understandings, it can be problematic to write in generalisations and use specific cases to draw broad conclusions.

Despite this concern, a highly significant idea that Sendak’s poem does effectively highlight is how knowledge and information is circulated. Who is given access to knowledge? When and where? What assumptions are made about what people can and cannot know and understand? Overall, Sendak makes the significant point that children should be respected as holders of knowledge.

Reference: James P. Grant, and UNICEF, eds. I Dream of Peace: Images of War by Children of Former Yugoslavia. 1st ed. New York, NY: UNICEF : HarperCollins, 1994.