Childhood history is a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken. The deeper into history, the less concern for children and the more likely a child is to be killed, abandoned, beaten, terrorized and sexually abused.
Lloyd Demoz
In the history of mankind, attitudes towards children, towards childhood, in general, relations between parents and children have changed very dramatically, and in order to understand the current stage of our life, it is useful to know how things were in the past.
In ancient times, up to the XNUMXth century AD. killing children was considered normal. When parents were afraid that a child would be difficult to raise or feed, they usually killed him.
Immediately, we note that all these dates make sense in relation to Europe. In Asia, Africa and America, especially in different regions, the dates are completely different. Russia is about 500 years behind Europe.
In ancient times, a child could easily be killed due to a handicap or fear that the child would be difficult to feed. Parents more often left boys alive than girls.
Family letter of the first century. The Roman author writes to his (apparently beloved) wife: “Greetings from Hilarion to his dear Alice, as well as to dear Berous and Apollinarion. We are still in Alexandria. Don’t worry if I’m late and the others come back early. Look after our little one. As soon as they pay me, I will send the money. If — I pray to the gods — you give birth safely, leave the boy and throw the girl away. You told Aphrodisias not to forget you. How can I forget you? Do not worry».
In 79 families that received the citizenship of Miletus around 228-220. BC e., had 118 sons and 28 daughters
Children were often sacrificed to the gods. Such a custom existed among many peoples: the Irish Celts, Gauls, Scandinavians, Egyptians, and others. Even in Rome, the stronghold of the civilized world, child sacrifice semi-legally existed.
The killing of children was considered the norm until the fourth century AD. Only 374 AD. through the efforts of the church, a law was passed condemning the murder of children. However, the killing of illegitimate children was common until the nineteenth century.
To make children obedient, adults frightened them with all kinds of monsters. Most of the ancients agreed that it would be good to constantly keep images of night demons and witches in front of children, always ready to steal them, eat them, tear them to pieces.
In the IV-XIII centuries AD. e. it was considered normal to abandon a child, send him to a nurse, to a monastery or an institution for small children, to the house of another noble family as a servant or hostage. The child could be sold to another family, he was an ordinary commodity. At home, the child was treated like an adult, immediately loaded him with work. From the age of three, he could work in the garden or in the house on an equal basis with other adults.
The tradition of giving away children was so strong that it existed in England and America until the eighteenth century, in France until the nineteenth, in Germany until the twentieth. In 1780, the head of the Parisian police gives the following approximate figures: every year 21000 children are born in the city, of which 17000 are sent to the villages to nurses, 2000 or 3000 are sent to houses for babies, 700 are nursed by wet nurses in the parents’ house, and only 700 are breastfed by their mothers. .
Children have always and everywhere malnourished. Even in wealthy families, it was believed that the diet of children, especially girls, should be very meager, and it is better to give meat in very small quantities or not at all.
Since the time of Rome, boys and girls have always served their parents at the table, and in the Middle Ages, all children, with the possible exception of members of the royal family, were used as servants. It was not until the nineteenth century that the use of child labor became a subject of discussion.
In the Middle Ages, children were often taken out of school as a class to watch the hanging, and parents often took their children to the spectacle as well. It was believed that the sight of executions and corpses was good for raising children.
The role of «scarecrow» for children at that time was assumed by the church. After the Reformation, God himself, who «dooms you to hell with fire, as you doom spiders or other disgusting insects to fire,» was the main bogeyman for intimidating children.
XIV-XVII centuries — the child is already allowed to join the emotional life of the parents. however, the main task of parents is to “cast” it into a “form”, “forge”. Among philosophers from Dominici to Locke, the most popular metaphor was the comparison of children with soft wax, plaster, clay, which must be shaped. Many manuals for raising children appeared, and the cult of Mary and the baby Jesus spread. and in art, the “image of a caring mother” became popular.
Before the eighteenth century, a very large percentage of children were beaten regularly. Whipping weapons were a variety of whips and whips, sticks and much more. Even belonging to the royal family did not exempt from beatings. Already as king, Louis XIII often woke up in horror at night, waiting for the morning spanking. On the day of the coronation, eight-year-old Louis was flogged, and he said: “I’d better do without all these honors, so long as they don’t flog me.”
It wasn’t until the Renaissance that it began to be said in earnest that children shouldn’t be beaten so severely, and the people who said it usually agreed that it was reasonable to beat them.
Until the eighteenth century, children were not potty trained, but were instead given enemas and suppositories, laxatives and emetics, whether they were healthy or sick. It was believed that something daring, vicious and rebellious in relation to adults was lurking in the intestines of children. The fact that the child’s stool smelled and looked bad meant that in fact, somewhere deep down, he had a bad attitude towards others.
XVIII century — parents try to gain power over his mind and already through this power to control his internal state, anger, needs, masturbation, even his very will. When a child was brought up by such parents, he was nursed by his own mother; he was not subjected to swaddling and constant enemas; he was taught to go to the toilet early; not forced, but persuaded; beaten sometimes, but not systematically; punished for masturbation; obedience was forced often with the help of words, and not just threats. Some pediatricians were able to achieve a general improvement in parental care for children and, as a result, a decrease in infant mortality, which laid the foundation for the demographic changes of the XNUMXth century.
Attempts to limit corporal punishment for children were made in the seventeenth century, but the biggest shifts occurred in the eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century, old-fashioned spankings began to fall out of favor in much of Europe and America. This process turned out to be the most protracted in Germany, where, in anonymous studies, 80% of parents still admit that, despite the legislative ban, they beat their children.
When the church stopped leading the campaign of intimidation, new scary characters appeared: ghosts, werewolves, etc. “The nanny took the fashion to calm down a capricious child in the following way. She dresses absurdly, enters the room, growls and yells at the child in a vile voice that irritates the delicate children’s ears. At the same time, coming close, gestures to the child to understand that he will now be swallowed.
The tradition of bullying children came under attack only in the nineteenth century.
An almost universal custom was to restrict the freedom of movement of the child with various devices. The most important aspect of a child’s life in his early years was swaddling.
As recent medical studies have shown, swaddled babies are extremely passive, have slow heartbeats, cry less, sleep much more, and are generally so quiet and lethargic that they cause very little trouble for their parents.
When a child left the diaper age, other methods of restricting mobility were applied to him, in each country and for each era. Sometimes children were tied to chairs so that they could not crawl. Until the nineteenth century, helpers were tied to the child’s clothes in order to better follow him and guide him in the right direction.
XIX century — the middle of the XX. The upbringing of a child is no longer so much about mastering his will, but about training it, directing it to the right path. The child is taught to adapt to circumstances, socialized. In the nineteenth century, fathers became much more likely to show interest in their children, sometimes even relieving the mother of the hassle of parenting.
Until the twentieth century, it was common for small children to be left alone. Parents rarely cared about the safety of children and the prevention of accidents.
When the punishment of beating began to fall out of fashion, other punishments were needed to make children obedient. For example, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it became very popular to lock children in the dark.
Since the middle of the XNUMXth century, the helping style has become popular. This style is based on the assumption that the child is better than the parent at knowing his needs at every stage of development. Both parents participate in the child’s life, they understand and satisfy his growing individual needs. No attempt is made at all to discipline or shape «features». Children are not beaten or scolded, they are forgiven if they make a scene in a state of stress. Parents consider it normal to be a servant, not the eldest in the family. The main thing in the family is the child.
Materials of Lloyd Demoz «Psychohistory» (chapter «The Evolution of Childhood») were used in the preparation of the article.