Photo series by T. Christopher Crandall
Thursday, January 1, 1970, 12:00 am, 0
There exists a duality within childhood – one that sustains childhood innocence, while also providing the clues and cues as to the roles children will hold as adults and what will be expected of them.
Female infants, fresh from the womb, are given vinyl “babies” of their own to nurture, and raise within their plastic super-deluxe kitchen sets and fantasy bedrooms. While male infants are handed non-human “objects” – bats and balls, trucks and cars, plastic handguns and other implements which to do battle in the fields, streets and playgrounds of their neighborhoods.
However, by shifting the perspective and the light just a bit, these toy icons of childhood begin to communicate other, perhaps more insidious, messages of adulthood. The children are listening.