Chapter 6 -Heywood

Beginning a child’s education

1) From the Mother

      - Religious Character -From middle ages

              - How to make the sign of the cross

              - Prayers

              - Pictures of religious to show children

              - Older kids, religious dolls

              - Moral

                    - Every aspect should be a learning opportunity

              - Boiling vegetables - Ideal opportunity to instruct child of what happens to sinners

              - Cooking eggs - time by how long it takes to cite a common prayer   

     - Reading and writing was also taught, was mostly seen by educated elite by four or five, they were learning casual reading

2) Middle and Upper Class

       - Social skills are important

       - Good Manners

            - Was a sign of superior breeding

            - Behave Like ladies and gentlemen

       - Erasmus - 1530's

            - Do not wipe nose on sleeves

            - Have confidence

            - Do not swear

            - Do not stand with mouth open

Chapter 5 - Heywood

Chapter five discusses caring for infants. There are three main themes that emerge.

The first theme is wet nursing.

In this theme the mothers practice giving their child to another mother that has also recently had a child and this mother breasts feeds the child so that the biological mother can keep her figure. This started being practiced in the 14th century in the middle and upper class and by the 18th and 19th century it was practiced a lot. Now it is no longer practiced because people are opposed to it because people that practice it have a lower infant mortality rate.

The second theme is the scientific approach

This theme occurred in the 19th and 20th century and what happened was that medical professionals were dismissing female knowledge.

The third theme is Michel Foucault and he did some research in genealogy, which is tracing family history.

Coming from a dairy farm I know how important the first three feedings are, if a child does not get these feeds from their own mother or a mother that has a baby at almost the exact same time, the baby is going to miss out on the essential colostrum that the mother produces the first three days after childbirth. Therefore I am against the idea of having another mother take care of someone’s baby. The fact that the mothers do it just to keep their figure almost makes me a little angry. It is not just the mother’s life that is being affected there is now a baby that has to be taken care of. I know that when I have kids I will do what is best for them, even if I do not like it or it ruins my figure.

Chapter 4 - Heywood

Overview

      - Phases of Childhood

Desire to have Children

      - Was a noble thing to do but serving god was higher

      - Women took steps to enhance fertility

Childbirth

      - Difficult time for the mother

      - Most moms get baby blue or can develop postpartum depression (PPD)

              - Midwife comes to help her through her emotional problem or female family member can also help

Professional Tensions

     - Who is most appropriate to help the mothers, family, midwife, or medical professionals

     - Feminist Perspective, medical profession is an example of men trying to take everything over

     - Michelle Foucault was a historian we started to question the power medical professionals, because they pretty much had the choice of life or death

I think that having a midwife is a good thing as long as they do not get in the way of the family. I think that if they are just going to cause problems between people in the family that it is not a good idea, but if the whole family is happy with having a midwife it is a good idea. In Holland when my mom had children there was a nurse that came home with her for a week to help her with the baby and to make sure that the baby was healthy and everything went well. I think that this is also a good idea, because I think that new moms worry a lot about their babies are doing or not doing, and the nurse is there for reassurance. 

Chapter 3 - Heywood

Overview

    - there are not going to be a huge number of people that think that children are either perfect or evil, people usually think that they are somewhere in the middle. This is the case in most historical periods

Some Themes

    - Depravity/Innocence

           - Children were looked at as angels

    - Nature/ Nurture

           - Heredity or environment

     - Age/Sex

           - Childhood is an age but is different between boys and girls

                  - Boys were first children differentiated by sex

           - Androgyny

                  - This is a person that exhibits traits of both sexes

     - Independence/Dependence

           - Help out enough so they can continue on their own

Finding the Turning Point

In the text they are trying to find the turning point of when childhood actually started to exist. There are five main points that we looked at

1) The quest for a Turning Point

         - Aries believed that we had no conception of childhood

         - Postman wrote a book called the end of childhood

                - In this book he writes that childhood is disappearing again, he believes that the written word is what creates childhood and literacy is the birth of childhood. He goes on to say that television is the end of childhood because he believes that if you can watch television you can be an adult.

2) The Industrial Revolution and Machine Age

        - Before the Industrial Revolution most people lived in rural setting, but then land became more profitable if people could produce cotton and wool on it. People then had to move to cities to work in the factories

        - Then Marxian Alienation happened which is that people that are working in factories did not know what was being produced with their work, and people were searching for lost lives

3) The Romantic Conception of the Child

        - This happened in the late 18th early 19th century

        - It was a reaction against industrialization, they thought it was not right for children to be working in the factories, and they believed that children represented: innocence, grace, glory, heaven, and flowers in a garden.

4) Resistance

        - This was the concept that everyone was born with the burden of an original sin

5) So...

        - According to Heywood there is no single defined turning point for when childhood was developed.

I think that childhood as always existed, just back then it was a different kind of childhood. I think this because children have the natural instinct to play and even the way that things were back in the day does not change that. I children have that natural instinct it is going to happen regardless of the condition the child is living in. 

Hyper Parenting

This is a preview of the video that we watched in class I found that it really opened my eyes to a lot of things that are actually going on.

The children these day are getting everything they want and the parents are being overprotective. I found that the little girls first birthday was ridiculous, who remembers their first birthday I know I do not. Also I know for my first birthday it was just my family and mom made a cake and I got a doll, none of this crazy Cinderella and amazing cake birthday party. If I was this little girl and I saw these pictures later on in life I would have asked my mom why so would put so much into my first birthday, I do not even remember it. Also in the full version of the video they talk about teenagers and their moms always texting them asking where they are, what they are doing, and when they will be home. It seems like the teens are not living their own lives anymore and taking their own risks and making their own mistakes. I find that my mom is a hyper parent in this why and I am now 19 years old and she still tells me what I can and cannot do. I find this a little much because I know that when I am on my own I will not know how to fight my own fights and solve my own problems. I think that people that are being hyper parented have just as much stress as those that do not because those that do not have to find a way to pay for everything and figure everything out themselves, but kids that are being hyper parented have to live up to an expectation and once they are on their own they will not know what to do so they will keep turning back to mom and dad which is not always the best because one day they are not going to be there for you. I know that for me personally I would like to move out so that I have the freedom and independence but also I am scared because I will not have my parent’s right there all the time. I think that parents should be caring about a child’s life and be there when they need them but if they want to do something that the parents disagrees with let them. I think that teens need to figure stuff out for themselves, like many people say you have to see it to believe it, or you have to live it before you know the consequences.

Heywood Introduction

Colin Heywood is the author of the textbook that we are using for this class. it is called A History of Childhood.
1) Overview of the book - compairing then to now
      - Western context Europe & the states
      - Things have gotten easier& more Difficult over time
      - No more work, better health, acknowledged that childhood does exist
      - Have more to do, sport, school, after school programs
2) Childhood as a social construct
      - Childhood did not exist back in the day is the point of view he takes in the book
      - Childhood emerges as an object of inquiry, when it did not before
3) Children in their social context
      - Relations with siblings, friends, families
               - Intamite social relations
4) Work, Health & Education
       - Look at childhood so it occurs in the premodern world ( pre 20th century)