Children Archives - Public Seminar

Activism

Against Innocence

Unravelling the myth of the depoliticized child

March 4, 2026 • by Alexandra Magearu

1. In my early twenties, I was captivated by the idea that creative processes can return us to the boundless dreamscapes of our childhood. Only back then, I thought, could we afford to experience the world somatically. Not yet captured by social conventions, our bodies had the potential to become everything. ...

Kinships

Inheritance

Pregnant Girl: A story of teen motherhood, college, and creating a better future for young families

May 4, 2021 • by Nicole Lynn Lewis

_____ Honey. For a long time, that’s the only name I had for her, and it fit. Her voice, soothing like honey drizzling over a piece of warm buttered toast, came through the phone every few months. as if she was reading a book or singing a hymn, she chose each word carefully ...

Literature

Beverly Cleary

Past Present Podcast, Episode 272

April 6, 2021 • by Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela and Neil J. Young

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: At the age of 104, children’s author Beverly Cleary has died. Natalia drew on this Bulwark article about Cleary’s apolitical appeal, and Niki referred to this Atlantic essay and this Vulture piece about her grasp of children’s emotional landscape. Neil ...

Kinships

Hilaria Baldwin’s Newest Baby Should Make Us All Happy

A fresh baby makes us understand how little we understand of other families

March 15, 2021 • by Amanda Katz

_____ In its infinite generative power, Twitter recently churned up an oddly enchanting term: the fresh baby. What is a fresh baby, you may ask? Well, a fresh baby is the baby you get when you already have a newish baby, say less than six months old, and then all of ...

Hilaria Baldwin’s Newest Baby Should Make Us All Happy

Migration

Creating Linkages

Witnessing the trauma of child separation

October 19, 2020 • by Arielle Rubenstein

In his three-volume work on the child’s tie to his mother, Bowlby includes this passage from a colleague’s description of the young child who has been separated from his mother. At the time, parent-child separation happened in routine circumstances, like the hospitalization of the mother or the child. Before it ...

Migration

Child Separation

A documentary poem reacting to a film about the separation of children from their parents in Nazi camps

October 19, 2020 • by Radu Vancu

The child Fred is told by his mother: “You must not look back.”And he did not look back – and he survived – and his mother did not.Orpheus was not as strong you were, Fred – he looked back, the poor thing.On December 6th, 1938, in the middle of the ...

History

Taking Children

An excerpt from Taking Children: A History of American Terror by Laura Briggs

June 8, 2020 • by Laura Briggs

The past stalks the present, the ghost in the machine of memory. This is why history writing matters; it gives us ways to understand the specters already among us and to assemble tools to transform our situation. Things change; the epidemic of child taking in the context of mass incarceration ...

Kinships

COVID-19 Paused Family Reunification Cases

They’re resuming, but at what pace?

April 24, 2020 • by James Parrott

Abigail Kramer is a senior editor at the Center for New York City Affairs at The New School. She specializes in policy issues impacting low-income children, youth, and families in New York City—especially those in the foster care and juvenile justice systems.

COVID-19 Paused Family Reunification Cases

Feature

Reformed Mental Health Services for Kids Begin to Take Shape

A Center for New York City Affairs event

April 19, 2018 • by Abigail Kramer

After tense and uncertain budget negotiations, New York State will move forward with several pieces of its long-planned expansion of behavioral health services for children on Medicaid. This week, the Center for New York City Affairs hosted a panel of experts to talk about what's next for this reform: What the vision ...