Sentieri non lineari per la conquista del “sentimento dell’infanzia” nel Novecento: indizi e denunce al MoMa di New York

As a matter of fact, little girls and boys have always been but not childhood! Childhood, as a social andcultural construct, exists if it is recognized in the physical and personal data, as in the specific needs,competencesandpotentials. Itis necessarytosupplychildrenwith environments, times, relationships,educational and daily proposals. For too long this recognition has failed, with the risk of assimilationand homogenisation between the adult world and the children’s, which is still ignored. The twentiethcentury, also called the century of childhood, sees a progressive attention to the world of childhood, asshown by a growing production of toys, furniture and materials specifically designed for little girls andboys. Even the MoMa of New York, in 2012, staged the exhibition “Century of the Child: Growing byDesign, 1900-2000” dedicated to objects designed for infancy in the twentieth century: the path of theconquest of childhood is told through the design and creation of objects, clothes, toys, educationalfeatures, tools and materials. The promises made by the twentieth century reached their peack in1989, with the UN Declaration of the Rights of Child, but still most of proclamations often remainfine words. Adults must be responsible towards children and respect their rights in order to let themlive a childhood free from the risks of “adultification”, love for spectacle and “showcase-fication”.