In this article, I try to look at three aspects which will serve as a tool to ponder over the emergence of childhood. At first, I refer to some limit of life experiences, in a way that they help scrape the visions that naturalize life and childhood, in particular those forged within the medical field. Next, I try to demonstrate that the idea of childhood cannot be disconnected from associated institutions, such as home and school. Finally, I try to draw the attention to the fact that the children's general institutionalization is deeply bound to government projects aimed at the population, including the socalled "child population", a project which, in turn, is anchored on the knowledge of demography, public hygiene and urbanism, for instance.
Childhood; Children's History; History of Education