The idea of childhood is something that pretty much everyone can get behind. Most of us see kids as innocent, energetic little humans who enjoy blocks, stuffed animals, and all of the adorable toys on the store shelves. This ideology of childhood is pretty well-established in many parts of the world, but not everyone feels the same way.
Julia Fox, model, actor, and former girlfriend and muse of rapper and businessman Kanye West, for one, has a lot to say about childhood as of lately. In fact, the single mom of one thinks the entire "idea" of childhood is a scam. She recently explained her thoughts in a now-viral video on TikTok, and even though most people were shocked by what she had to say, she actually made a few good points.
Fox went viral on TikTok after she shared some interesting beliefs about the concept of childhood itself.
In a video posted at the end of August that now has nearly 3 million views and more than 400,000 likes, Fox said childhood is actually a relatively new concept. In fact, she said that she hopped onto TikTok to remind everyone that the idea of childhood was only invented in the 18th century. Before that, children were seen as just little adults, she said.
"That's why in a lot of old paintings the children don’t look the same way that we show them today, you know, with the like angelic features and all that stuff. They didn’t do that back then," she explained.
She claims that childhood today is just a scheme to make parents blow money on things their kids don't really need.
Fox went on to say the things that parents spend money on today don't really "teach their kid" anything. "You just end up raising a kid that’s like helpless and doesn’t know what to do."
Essentially, she thinks that kids should be doing more practical things so that they can learn life skills.
Fox said her own son, Valentino, is more interested in what she's doing than in his toys.
Fox tried to explain to people that the more they give their children things that they don't need, the fewer useful things they'll be learning. She expressed that those are the people who end up having to outsource everything and pay other people to do things in the real world once they're adults.
She said her son is more interested in whatever she's doing than in toys. She explained that she got her own son, who is a year old, a mop and a broom so he can learn real-life skills to use later on in life.
She later shared a video of the most "controversial" thing she did this year, which was purchasing her son's toy cleaning set, as a follow-up to the original controversial video.
People on TikTok had some hilarious responses to her take on parenting and childhood.
Some people online joked that they too have purchased their kids things to use in the real world.
"When my son was born the first outfit I gave him was nurses scrubs and he’s worked full time in the hospital ever since," commented one person.
"Yeah my kid is actually doing my jury duty for me right now," wrote someone else. Still another commenter said they make their toddler file their taxes for them.
A lot of the comments were in jest, but some people have actually tried to poke holes in Fox's theory.
In a follow-up video, Fox clarified what she meant in the original TikTok.
Fox laughed at the fact that so many people felt that she was telling other parents that kids should be "working" and not enjoying childhood. She clarified by saying that she believed kids should be doing things to establish skills and help them become more independent, not "work."
"Listen, there's a reason why in public school specifically, they don't teach kids trades or any marketable skills like sewing or building things or growing food, or, like, you know, just basic [expletive], because they wanna keep people dumb so that they have to go pay for it," she said in the follow-up.
Although Fox got quite a bit of backlash for her seemingly unconventional opinions about kids and parenting, her viewpoint is in keeping with some of the tenets of the Montessori Method of education, in which it is believed kids should take ownership of their own educations and be allowed to safely do things for themselves. They develop interests and hobbies naturally and organically, instead of being told what to do and what to learn.
Fox wasn't too far off from a quite profound and well-respected theory, after all!
Honestly, it today's society, we kind of agree with her. An entire generation — or maybe even two — has largely missed out on learning basic life skills in the interests of pursuing higher education and commercialism, and we're starting to see that maybe those life skills should not have taken the back burner the way they have for the past several decades. We can definitely get behind teaching our kids to cook, clean, build, and be responsible.
