A Child's Christmas in America

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CHANGING SEXUAL ROLES. One of the most heartening aspects of recent years, says Harvard Developmental Psychologist Jerome Kagan, is the "removal from children of the inhibitions and timidity that have been an unfair burden for Western women-the freeing up of sex consciousness. In this sense children under ten are less anxious than their counterparts of a century ago."

Lollipop Power and other groups dedicated to expunging sexist stereotypes from children's literature are hard at work. Even the popular, didactic Doctor Seuss has been taken to task for portraying all his animals-even hens-as male, and for giving only one woman an occupation: the royal laundress in Bartholomew and the Oobleck. Many textbooks are being rewritten to erase sexist bias (TIME, Nov. 5), and in real life children and parents are coping -sometimes ludicrously-with the change as best they can.

Lelia Taratus, 9, the daughter of an Atlanta orthodontist, wears jeans and plays football with the boys at recess three days a week. But she has also made a deal with her mother to wear a dress and play with the girls the other two days. Dr. Spock is reordering the pronouns in his classic book Baby and Child Care, but he has a few qualms about rearing sons and daughters with minimal sex distinctions: "No country I know of has tried to bring them up to think of themselves as similar. Such an attempt would be the most unprecedented social experiment in the history of our species."

RETURN OF DISCIPLINE. Dr. Kagan believes that parents are confused about discipline. "They now believe at least in part that if you discipline a child you may be creating a well of guilt which will not contribute to his happiness." Therefore, he believes, discipline is still relaxed, as it has been since the '50s. However, Kagan predicts a change away from permissiveness as today's 19-year-olds start having children. "They will look back on their childhood and interpret part of their Angst to the fact that their parents seemed confused about what to teach them. And they will vow that this will not happen to their children."

Other observers believe that the swing back to stronger discipline has already occurred. Child Psychologist Zan-wil Sperber notes that "we are beyond do-good permissiveness," but are in a "very flux-y situation. Some people undoubtedly are going back to the idea of role-authoritarian discipline. That is when you say to a child, 'Why should you listen to me? Because I am your mother, that's why.' " Says Psychiatrist James Anthony: "There's definitely been a return of discipline. And with the emergence of a stronger parent has come 'the model child.'" To Anthony this spells trouble. "Personally I am much more worried about the quiet child than the rebellious child. The conformist child goes along for years, and then suddenly trouble comes in some big, dramatic action."