Many thanks to NYU Press and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of Henry Jenkins’s excellent new book Where the Wild Things Were: Boyhood and Permissive Parenting in Postwar America. It took me a little while to get through this book, but it was well worth it. Jenkins’s scholarship focuses on the shift towards permissive parenting, which he defines as a shift from more strict discipline for children, or kind of like a view of children as little adults, to one that focused on parents being more attuned to the needs of their children. While there has always been debate about parenting styles and approaches, Jenkins’s definition and examples of permissive parenting are not necessarily absentee or devoid of any kind of discipline. Rather, it looked more like the kind of authoritative parenting style that is often touted as being high on responsiveness for white, middle class families. Jenkins credits the noted pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock and cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead as the two influential thinkers who helped to shift the parental paradigm towards this more responsive approach. However, Jenkins also provides some background in looking at developmental theorists like Freud, G. Stanley Hall, and later, Erik Erikson, who also helped shape this approach towards more responsiveness to children. I really loved learning about the Child Study Teams, and how Hall in particular recruited mothers to help serve as kind of observational scientists about their own children’s development. Jenkins notes that incorporating the mothers’ perspectives and observations allowed for more real data to verify some of the developmental trajectories that children experience. He contrasts these kinds of real-world applications with the more mechanical (and popular at the time) approaches of Watson and the early days of Behaviorism, which was the dominant mode of Psychological research at the time.
Beyond looking at theoretical and developmental differences, Jenkins real analysis examines the kinds of media and resources that parents and their children engaged in, and how the permissive or responsive approaches were incorporated into popular media, especially in books, films, and television. Although much of this was before my time, I still experienced many of the after-effects of this kind of approach to parenting, since my parents, especially my mom, were exposed to this style, and we can still see how influential children’s media like Sesame Street continues to influence children today. I also grew up watching Mr. Rodger’s Neighborhood and reading Dr. Seuss books, two topics that feature prominently in Jenkins’s analyses of permissive parenting and child development. It was fascinating to read about the thinking that went into some of these texts, shows, and films, since I often enjoyed them as a child, not really thinking about the educational or philosophical approaches to child development behind them. Yet, Jenkins’s detailed scholarship and analysis helps to provide an interesting perspective about the ideas and philosophies that helped to shape many of these cherished parts of people’s childhoods. I also loved how he frequently connected the media and resources to Spock and Mead, showing their influence on these books and shows.
While Jenkins primarily focuses on white, middle class baby boomers, he also brings in perspectives of Black and Asian boys, while also discussing how rigid Mead and Spock’s views of gender roles were. It’s interesting to consider, as Jenkins does, what their views might be like today, since it seemed like their perspectives, especially Spock’s, were continuously evolving. Jenkins brought up some other texts, like Ezra Jack Keats’ The Snowy Day and a strange Golden Book called Tootle that I’ve read with my own kids. I got Tootle for my son, and it became one of his favorite stories, but I’ve always been troubled by it. Jenkins seems to suggest that the story is more about obedience and conformity, but I also wondered whether there was something about sexuality in the book as well, as Tootle, a fast train who fails to stay on the tracks, is reprimanded for following his desires to be around flowers and play in the field, rather than work. Regardless of his take, I was glad to see that there was someone else questioning this message, and it also made me think about the larger issues of how powerful messages can be in children’s media and literature. This also resonated with me in why Jenkins’s book is so important today, as there are continued battles about which books children can access in schools. As Jenkins states in his Coda, a Vice Principal was fired for reading a popular and humorous book with his students. The book, titled I Need a New Butt, was a funny story about a boy discovering his body, something that happens with all kids. Yet, parents complained, and the Vice Principal was fired for sharing his love of reading with students. As Jenkins shows throughout the book and his research, children’s literature and media can be powerful ways to not only help children learn important life and interpersonal skills, but they can also be used to impart important cultural lessons and values. Furthermore, this kind of literature and media can be powerful tools for handling difficult times and challenging emotions, as Jenkins’s chapters analyzing Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood highlight. These were some of my favorite chapters and gave me a new appreciation and insight into this important show. It’s also emblematic of this kind of responsive approach to children, showing them that people are willing to listen to them and consider their ideas and needs seriously. Other chapters examine shows ranging from Dennis the Menace to Johnny Quest, which interestingly brings in an Indian character for multiculturalism. As Jenkins shows in his research, this also aligns with an increase in adoptees from Asian countries, so it was trying to be more representative of the changing demographics in American society. One of the more interesting shows that Jenkins analyzes also starred Jay North, of Dennis the Menace fame. It was a later show in the 60s, titled Maya, about a boy who traveled to India to find his father, but also goes on journeys with another Indian boy, discovering his own identity. I’ll try to seek this show out because it sounds like a fascinating story that was also examining different aspects of identity, culture, and the expanding global society. Another chapter examined Lost in Space, and how the boys in this story both represented elements of boyhood during this permissive approach to parenting but also created a kind of aspirational character that tried to showcase the importance of science.
As Jenkins notes in both the book’s Introduction and Coda, ideas about parenting approaches and philosophies are nothing new. We can see today how much pushback and blame this kind of responsive parenting gets for problems in society. There was also blame and consternation in the 60s, where many, including Spiro Agnew, the disgraced Vice President of the Nixon administration, blamed Dr. Spock and permissive parenting for social change. That’s what makes Jenkins’s book even more important today. His careful analysis and consideration of the different media, shows, movies, and texts that children experience in during their formative years also show the kind of thought and consideration that went into their development. In particular, it was reassuring (for me) to know that there was a conscious decision to show children that the world can be considerate and caring, and that emphasizing their importance and uniqueness in the world is important in helping them understand their own roles in the world, while also developing a sense of autonomy and independence. I know that I was thinking about my own children as I read this book, and how different their childhoods are from my own. Regardless, I still try to share books and movies with them that I think they might appreciate and learn something from. I’ve also tried to read more recent books like The Wild Robot that my kids really enjoy and are also somewhat pedagogical in teaching lessons and imparting values. With continuing challenges and battles about what students can access and even what and how people should parent, I feel like Jenkins’s book is not only enjoyable to read, but also necessary in understanding in the shifts in parenting styles.

I loved the cultural history presented in this work. Analysis of archetypal figures from TV, comics, literature, and film all build a comprehensive understanding of the creation of a specific vison of boyhood (and manhood) in the mid twentieth century.

Advice on parenting dates as far back as the first mother-in-law, but around the turn of the 20th century it became increasingly scietificized. Not scientific in the sense that it is a subject that resists true scientific study for practical, ethical, and temporal reasons, but with an increased desire to find a techne to parenting based on scientific disciplines like medicine, psychology, and anthropology.

Around the same point that the Boomers were booming, the style that came into fashion was called Permissive Parenting. As titles go, meh. The name is laden with baggage that suggests a sort of laxity, and it implies that all parenting before was rigor and authoritarianism. Neither is true. But it did emphasize self-development as self-determination and tolerating a sort of rambunctiousness as useful and important.

It was also very white and very male. But expressly small-d democratic and civic.

Where the Wild Things Were (and as titles go, stellar), looks at Permissive Parenting through media of the era. Most, but not all, was not consciously constructed in terms of the Permissive style, but it reflects its values. It is self-reflective in the the sense that the author himself is of the generation raised in this tradition, and the book includes pictures from him as a youth that advance his themes. It is also self-reflective in the sense that it is about you. This is what you read and watched as a child. Few of the works here are memory-holed. Most of them are baby shower staples. The exceptions tend to be television, which are not forgotten as much as drowned in today's multi-vector environment.

The book has less of a singular argument as much as a reading of a diverse set of works from the post-war period employing Permissive Parenting as a critical framework. these works in terms of the Permissive model. The standout is the section on Dennis the Menace, both as comic and as television show. As the archetypal 'boy in the striped shirt' (until Calvin at any rate), the author is able to find the workings of the Permissive style and the (real) virtues it aimed at, particularly in a work that I would otherwise dismiss as trivial.

The weakest section is the one on Fred Rodgers. It is full of amazing detail, but as the author himself notes Rodgers is inimitable, and while drawing from the same well is at right angles to everybody and everything, before, then, and since owing to his singular capacity and unimpeachable vision.

The wildest section is the redemptive reading of Lost in Space. The author contends that the show is misunderstood in terms of its focus (directed towards kids themselves) and discussing it also allows a greater discussion of science fiction and the nature of a changing imagination of the era.

The writing itself is cloyingly clear, employing a method straight out of a college essay formula of tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you have told them. There is plenty of explanation of Permissive Parenting, through quotations from Dr. Benjamin Spock, the person most closely associated with it, but also his predecessors and contemporaries. There is a lot of Freud, but of course there is. And often enough, there is supporting evidence from the creator themselves.

What makes the book a strong recommend is its contextualizing race and gender in terms of Permissive Parenting and the media covered. This is much more than pointing out that the past was less aware, (but particularly when it comes to American Indians, it ******* out to). It will stop to consider the role of race in the patter, but also includes Black-focused works, and how that resists the Permissive style due to its danger and deadliness within a larger confine of structural racism. Permissive Parenting was not blind to race, but was at a loss about how to deal with it; alternately it saw it as a cultural project in the context of the Cold War.

For masculinity, the model arises out of psychological theory. But also war. Specifically the experience of the first half of the century and the importance of resisting oppression within and without. How do we make good American citizens? How do we get our boys to be ready to punch Nazis, now that we've already killed all of them? How do we make our boys able to act out Freedom of Speech in a nation of Freed from Want? In that context, the answer, and even its white- and boy- centered nature, seems vaguely reasonable. But the domino there falls to end with today's masculinity grifters and some of the more obscene answers to the masculinity crisis. Maybe even modern political dysfunction, like, all of it.

My thanks to the author, Henry Jenkins, for writing the book (and voluntarily shared his childhood pictures, which makes him a bolder person than I), and to the publisher, NYU Press, for making the ARC available to me.