Chapter 2-6 "Children in the Party"

"Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected with it. The songs, the processions, the banners, the hiking, the drilling with dummy rifles, the yelling of slogans, the worship of Big Brother- it was all a sort of glorious game to them. All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought criminals. It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children, And with good reason, for hardly a week passed in which the Times did not carry a paragraph describing how some eavesdropping little sneak-"child hero" was the phrase generally used- had not overheard some compromising remark and denounced their parents to the Thought Police." (Chapter 2, page 24)



This passage that comes from Chapter 2 is right after Winston helps his neighbors- the Parsons- with a maintenance issue in their kitchen. When Winston finishes up with the drain he begins to walk away when he hears a voice that he describes as 'savage' like and mentions how the voice had belonged to a 'tough-looking boy of nine', This is when Winston is able to see the attire of the children and notices that they are dressed up like Spies. Winston knows that what he is hearing is meant to be part of a game yet the vibes that the young boy emitted when he said that was very lethal and that made him feel uneasy because he could sense that for the kids it was not a just a game. The children throughout emit vibes that for them it was a serious matter, and it could be in a sense attributed to the fact that they were not only upset that they could not see the hanging but because they are devoted to the Party and they look up to these Spies. With this interaction between Winston and the Parsons children, we can get a sense of a few things: how children are more conditioned to uphold the Party, how they are able to contribute to society, and parallels to modern society.
Since the children are growing up in this society they are more influenced by the constant propaganda they see (i.e. Ignorance is Strength, Freedom is Slavery, and War is Peace) so for them they find this to be just a normal part of life, it is what they are constantly surrounded by in their everyday lives since they have been born. And since this is the only life they have known they do not know (in a way) how to misbehave or revolt because all they know is that they shouldn't because they are monitored. This allows them to be perfectly manipulated to believe that what the Party is doing is for their benefit. They are more or less the perfect citizens for the Party because they blindly follow the Party, which leads us to how they contribute to society.
They contribute the most to their society because they are more willing to go to any lengths to keep the Party in or to please (in some sense) Big Brother. In the excerpt, it is mentioned that the even have a section of the newspaper just set aside for the children that turn in their parents because they heard something that was 'compromising' so their instinct was to turn them into the Thought Police. Which lets us understand a bit more why the parents of these children are afraid of them, they are afraid they will be turned in as well. After being able to analyze this we can reflect on how we see this in the modern day.
Children now are more aware of what is going on because they have access to television and Internet and cell phones that they are a bit desensitizing to certain things because of what they are surrounded by. Like in 1984 children are more susceptible to being controlled by a screen because now parents just give their children a phone (or something along those lines) to their kids to keep them busy, which means they may pick up some habits from what they see there and not all of the actions are favorable.Another parallel we can see is their idolization of Spies, nowadays it is not as sinister in a sense but we do have children that if they idolize something they are more likely to try and act like them and play pretend (games like pretending to be a doctor or Sheriff). Another thing to note is that every generation is different so we can see that generational difference with the parents and children in 1984 with how both view the Party differently.