I am not sure how much of humanity's history can be gleaned from Dickens books, good as they are...at most they tell us that in a certain part of the world, in

I am not sure how much of humanity's history can be gleaned from Dickens books, good as they are...at most they tell us that in a certain part of the world, in a certain period, some children in certain classes of society were made to "earn their keep." And we all know how well the 1800's went for social justice. Undoubtedly children have participated more in livelihood in the past; helping with the fields, milking the cows and whatnot. Simultaneously nothing suggests that children never played, or even that they played any less than they do now, or that play was frowned upon somehow (generally, individual idiocies aside.) There are certainly drastic differences between cultures, but there are very few -- that I am aware of -- that completely or nearly so did away with "childhood."