The Role Of Children In Ayn Rand's Anthem
Throughout history and especially during the industrial revolution we have seen children work out in factories and fields. Factory owners hired children to work in factories because they were small enough to fit in places that were too tight for a grown adult to fit into and kids were cheaper for factory owners to pay. In the Ayn Rand’s novel Anthem babies are taken away from their birth mothers and put in a home with other children to be raised as a group. In Anthem, Equality 72521 talks of where he was raised, The Home of Infants, and the living conditions he faced. We learn his childhood was spent largely in a sleeping hall of one hundred beds, one peppered with fights with other children and frequent chastisement. From the ages of
five to fifteen, Equality 7-2521 lives at the Home of the Students and there recites a creed every night with the other students before going to bed. The creed declares that the individual is nothing when compared to the group and the State. This creed was most likely written and enforced by the dictatorial leaders of the city. As children, they learn to speak and think in third person, to never be alone, and to learn at the same pace. Everything else is considered to be a transgression. Dictatorial leaders would most likely enforce such living arrangements because they wish for all people to be exactly the same. In this future, the Council want all the people they rule over to live by their rules and to even think differently is a sin and will be punished severely. If children are taught this way of living is normal they are less likely to do any kind of questioning and probably will not rebel against the Council. Pediatrician Dr. Tanya Altmann says “A baby’s brain is twice as active as an adult’s brain. The first three years are of special importance. At this time the brain has the greatest potential for learning. An infant’s brain is like a sponge soaking up everything around them. For example, it is very easy for a child to learn a foreign language at this time.” so it would be necessary for a child to be taken from their birth mothers when they are still babies to learn at an early age that it is a transgression to be different in any way or form other than the way the caretakers teach them to be.
five to fifteen, Equality 7-2521 lives at the Home of the Students and there recites a creed every night with the other students before going to bed. The creed declares that the individual is nothing when compared to the group and the State. This creed was most likely written and enforced by the dictatorial leaders of the city. As children, they learn to speak and think in third person, to never be alone, and to learn at the same pace. Everything else is considered to be a transgression. Dictatorial leaders would most likely enforce such living arrangements because they wish for all people to be exactly the same. In this future, the Council want all the people they rule over to live by their rules and to even think differently is a sin and will be punished severely. If children are taught this way of living is normal they are less likely to do any kind of questioning and probably will not rebel against the Council. Pediatrician Dr. Tanya Altmann says “A baby’s brain is twice as active as an adult’s brain. The first three years are of special importance. At this time the brain has the greatest potential for learning. An infant’s brain is like a sponge soaking up everything around them. For example, it is very easy for a child to learn a foreign language at this time.” so it would be necessary for a child to be taken from their birth mothers when they are still babies to learn at an early age that it is a transgression to be different in any way or form other than the way the caretakers teach them to be.