The First Post: the Shadowy World of Childhood Culture

Don't worry, this isn't a rant about how sinister commercial forces are trying to take over the mind of our children. It's a lot more innocent (and hopefully interesting) than that. I was chatting to my eleven year old daughter in the garden the other day and she was reciting to me a song she learned in the playground.

It took me straight back to my primary school days. There was a song I remembered about one's old man being a lavatory cleaner (these are primary school kids remember), and this had been passed on from child to child since time immemorial. There were countless versions of it.

It then got me wondering about there being a parallel track of 'culture' running alongside what we adults tend to regard as the authoritative version. We have stories and songs encoded in an ever-growing variety of media. Kids, on the other hand have a more limited set of choices for communicating and recording, but they have their own little cultural artifacts, sometimes stories, songs, jokes, games etc. that are passed on through play and simple conversation. When we become adults, we forget all these.

So, most of this 'shadow culture' exists only in the minds of children. Much of it is frivolous, but some of it serves an additional useful purpose. I grew up on the edge of the countryside and often used to play with kids who lived on farms. We noticed that these children had their own 'lore' about which wild plants were poisonous and which were safe. Often these observations were dressed up in tall stories about sprouting wings or warts if you ate them, but we soon knew what to avoid. If we returned home with stained fingers, our parents knew it was almost certainly blackberry juice, and not honeysuckle or deadly nightshade.

So, next time your kid comes home from the playground reciting a newly-learned ditty, listen to them. It might save your life one day.