What does it mean when we say childhood is a 'social construct'?

We know childhood as the time we spend as an infant when we are dependent on our parents and naïve to ‘adult’ concepts such as sex, war and suffering.

A social construct is a concept created by society, such as the meanings given to certain words and gestures. (e.g. waving is a friendly welcome).

Childhood is often described as a social construct because it is not given the same meaning across cultures and time, but is specific to each society.

Cultures

Across the world, the age at which a person develops from a child into an adult is different. In the UK children usually only start to be given minor responsibilities between the ages of 13-18, but in Bolivia children start working from the age of 5 (Punch).

Time

Aries suggests that the notion of childhood did not exist in the Middle Ages. Children were not considered ‘special’ as they are today, and from the age of physical independence children were expected to work and receive the same punishments as adults for crimes.

Differences in the concept of ‘childhood’ across time and culture demonstrate that it is a ‘social construct’ determined by the society in which a child lives.