I remember growing up and learning about how horrible the past was to children, with everything from forced marriages to older men, to having to work in literal coal mines and industrial machines. How there was a serious phrase “Children are to be seen, not heard” as advice for parents to keep their kids silent. To say nothing of how literally beating your children just as daily ritual was considered normal for centuries.
I thought “Wow, thank God I am growing up in a civilized era that respects children as human beings.”
On the plus side, lots of us are raising our kids right. I learned a lot from my childhood, and then had like a 14-year gap between kids to learn even more. My youngest will be a good man who does the goddamn dishes.
I think we need to remember that child mortality was wayyyyyyy higher back then. In particularly in underdeveloped areas like Europe, where medicine and hygiene were centuries behind many other regions in the world. So generally about half of children would die before reaching adulthood. Especially in Europe that was still the case in the 18th century.
So there was a feedback loop, where the love “invested” into children had to be rationed, because their premature death was likely and they also needed to be “tough” if they wanted to survive.
Because many children would die anyways, it was easier for the affluent parts of society to abuse them as expendable by normalizing sending them to coal mines or to be eaten by the machines. Also the lack of contraception would ensure a steady “surplus” of children, further fueling the idea that they are expendable, whereas them being “expendable” limited the supply of adults, which is why adult life was given the higher importance.
I remember growing up and learning about how horrible the past was to children, with everything from forced marriages to older men, to having to work in literal coal mines and industrial machines. How there was a serious phrase “Children are to be seen, not heard” as advice for parents to keep their kids silent. To say nothing of how literally beating your children just as daily ritual was considered normal for centuries.
I thought “Wow, thank God I am growing up in a civilized era that respects children as human beings.”
On the plus side, lots of us are raising our kids right. I learned a lot from my childhood, and then had like a 14-year gap between kids to learn even more. My youngest will be a good man who does the goddamn dishes.
I think we need to remember that child mortality was wayyyyyyy higher back then. In particularly in underdeveloped areas like Europe, where medicine and hygiene were centuries behind many other regions in the world. So generally about half of children would die before reaching adulthood. Especially in Europe that was still the case in the 18th century.
https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past
So there was a feedback loop, where the love “invested” into children had to be rationed, because their premature death was likely and they also needed to be “tough” if they wanted to survive.
Because many children would die anyways, it was easier for the affluent parts of society to abuse them as expendable by normalizing sending them to coal mines or to be eaten by the machines. Also the lack of contraception would ensure a steady “surplus” of children, further fueling the idea that they are expendable, whereas them being “expendable” limited the supply of adults, which is why adult life was given the higher importance.
It’s still horrible, really. There’s a lot of work to do