Understanding Society
Short-Lived Golden Days
EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
The ‘golden days’ of unstructured childhood play began to recede in the 1980s as schedules filled and achievement culture intensified. Working from Rutger Bregman’s Humankind: A Hopeful History, Doug links that shift to growing anxiety about children’s performance. A psychiatrist’s sardonic description of ADHD as ‘the only seasonal disorder’ — quiet over summer, medicated when school resumes — closes the piece with a provocation.
A Note on the Original Text
Doug’s writings are presented as originally written. Spelling, punctuation, and grammatical irregularities have been retained to preserve his words and the integrity of the original record.
ORIGINAL WRITING
“The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
“These golden days were short-lived, however, as from the 1980s onward life grew progressively busier, in the workplace and in the classroom. Individualism and the culture of achievement gained precedence. Families grew smaller and parents began to worry whether their progeny would make the grade.
Kids who were too playful now might even be sent to a doctor. In recent decades, diagnosis of behavioral disorders have increased exponentially, of which, perhaps, the best example is ADHD. This is the only disorder, I once heard a psychiatrist remark, that’s seasonal: what seems insignificant over summer vacation requires more than a few kids to be dosed on Ritalin when schools start again”.