the reading i've been doing lately brings up a lot of interesting ideas about the historical changes to childhood. my favorite show-and-tell example of how what's good for children has changed is der struwwelpeter ("shock-headed peter," or mark twain's translation from the german, "slovenly peter"), a collection of short morality tales for children published in 1845. my sister-and-law brought back a copy for my husband from the struwwelpeter museum in frankfurt.
"slovenly peter," our anti-hero, refuses to have his nails or hair cut and becomes the creepy kid we see here on the cover:
in another story, a little boy won't stop sucking his thumb, and while out one day, a tailor comes along with gigantic shears and chops off the offending appendages (see image below). there's also the girl who plays with matches and burns to death and the boy who refuses to eat his supper and grows so skinny that he dies, too. fun stuff!
the idea of using scare tactics like these to teach children lessons is very much out of place in today's world of parenting where good moms and dads do their best to protect their children from the harshness of the adult world and home is a safe haven from danger.viviana zelizer's pricing the priceless child (1994) describes the moral transformation that childhood underwent in the US during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which accompanied industrialization. when the home stopped being the center of economic activity, the role of children changed, too. no longer valued workers on farms and in factories during their young years, children came to embody future potential and emotional pricelessness. child labor laws, compulsory school attendance, and increased attention to child safety marked and reinforced these changes. the bedtime stories parents told their children surely changed, too.
the argument could be made that ever since these changes were set in motion, parents (and especially mothers) have continually needed to step up their game to ensure that their children would be well taken care of--emotionally, developmentally, physically and materially (see previous post on how we define kids' needs). we internalize these standards. this reminds me of my own reaction to one of my favorite scenes ever from "mad men" (aka the very best show ever). here's the clip (embedding disabled--sorry!).
i love how this whole scene is set up. betty and francine smoking at the kitchen table and francine standing up to reveal her pregnant belly. betty calling sally over for a talking-to, but not the sort that a 2009 mom would give (not a toy! warn children of risks of suffocation!). betty's final command for sally, which calls our attention to an unseen toddler.
i don't know how much of betty's mothering we can consider typical of the early 60s and how much is played up for effect (i'd love for a historian of motherhood to write about this!). what i am fairly certain of is that we are meant to be a little shocked and horrified. i was, and i was also a bit comforted--"at least i'm a better mom than betty draper." then again, if our ideas about what it takes to raise optimally well-adjusted, smart and successful children keep ramping up, which of our well-meaning mothering practices will future TV (or whatever eventually, god forbid, replaces TV!) viewers ridicule?
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