Pic of some kid i got from an online store
Throughout the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries the parental attitudes
toward childhood and the upraising thereof changed dramatically, going from
the Calvinist belief that children are mainly ‘evil’ and that they should be
punished to the liberal idea that a parent must provide a healthy physical
and psychological environment.
During the sixteenth century it was believed that children were bad by
nature and would by their fundamental devilishness corrupt the entire
household. According to Calvinist doctrine a human is not born good but is
made so through education. Thus parents had the duty to restrain and punish
the child. It was not at all uncommon for a parent to punch his child in
retribution for a ‘bad deed’; another common beating utensil was the rod,
which was generally preferred to such things as pitchforks, shovels or other
tools of everyday activities. Also the fashion for newborns was all in
conformity, if anything seemed ‘out of the usual’ (i.e. left handed kids or
having a bent limb) swaddling took place. Swaddling is the practice of
disabling or wrapping a kid up by the use of cloth. Due to the agricultural
aspect of life in the sixteenth century mothers were unable to devote their
time and so they sent their kids of to a wet nurse. Among the rich many of
these practices were ‘in’, but usually on a less drastic level. Aristocratic
mothers usually used wet nurses but for convenience not out of necessity.
As time passed into the seventeenth century the belief system as related to
children changed also and so did the ways of taking care of them. Now the
young spawn of humankind were viewed as basically innocent and being in
ignorance of evil they were happy and forgiving. Albeit beating was still
common it was generally encouraged that the parent should subdue the child
through love and not sheep power. It was still believed that the child
should be denied just not reprimanded for having wanted something. Wet
nursing was a practice that, due to the belief that it was a mother’s
natural duty to nurse her child, was starting to wane.
During the eighteenth century, kids were viewed as sacks of joy that were
to be treated as kindly as possible. Nursing had become common due to the
beginning of the Industrial Revolution and the ongoing Agricultural
Revolution which enabled the mothers to spend more time on rearing their
children. Beating, although still practiced by the lower classes, was
abominated by the aristocracy. As in older times wrapping a child up in
lots of pointless things was still done but in smaller quantities thus not
fracturing as many bones. The general trend now was to provide the child
with a happy and healthy environment and give the child an example it could
follow.