SEVEN UP!

SEVEN UP

I just finished watching Seven Up, the first installment of a series of videos that follows a group of 14 very different children at seven-year intervals throughout their lives.  The premise of the series is that, at seven years old, ones character is pretty much completely defined and developed.  Little if anything will change about the child as he or she progresses through life.  The children where taken from different social and economic backgrounds and the show compares how each individual child’s upbringing affects them from such a young age and throughout their lives.

It’s a very interesting concept and I believe there is much truth to the theory being tried here.  I do agree that ones childhood can define them and their character.  Though I enjoyed the series very much, it’s hard to relate to any of the children being featured, since we where brought up very differently.  Besides growing up in a different time and place, I feel my social and economic background differs from all of theirs. 

So far my favorite two children are Tony and Simon.  I like Tony because he just seems like the boldest out of all the children.  He is not scared of fighting and generally seems tougher then the other kids.  He seems fearless.  He comes off as a natural born leader.  He is not timid or meek.  I feel the rest of the children would listen to him and follow him if they where put together. Simon on the other had is very different.  He’s timid and doesn’t like to fight.  He lives in an orphanage and is the only child of color.  I find myself empathetic towards him.

My first impression of this series is genuinely interested.  It’s amazing how these kids are so different and you can see it’s because of their background.  Their opinions on love, the opposite sex, their interests and ambitions in life are different all around.  The richer kids know what universities they want to go to while one of the poorer kids didn’t know what a university was and the ones that did had no intentions of going.  The richer children cared about finance and stocks and things of that matter that the poorer children had no interest in.  To me the most interesting difference (so far) is the expectations of these children.  The poorer children are expected to stop school at 15 years old and become workers where as the richer children are expected to become successful after a lot of education.  The lives of the richer kids seem promising and even predetermined while the futures of the poorer children seem uncertain and skeptical. 

Their opinions of each other were amusing as well.  Some of the richer kids came off as thinking they where better than the poor while others believed you had to help the poor or “they would die.”  The poor children believed the rich children could do whatever they want and seemed generally disliking of them.  I enjoyed this series and I am excited to see how these kids develop and to see them at 14 years old.