# How did the pioneer parents keep their babies safe?



## USAmma (Nov 29, 2001)

I have been thinking long and hard about that family with the 16 kids, and that got me researching the Pearls more, and spanking in general, using switches, and training children. All things that we would find appalling and abusive today. My grandpa tells stories about picking his own switch off the tree, and about the older kids being in charge of younger ones b/c they were a farming family and there were a lot of kids.

I started thinking back to pioneer days (dd and I are reading Laura Ingalls Wilder right now) and how most kitchens had a big fireplace or cooking pit. The nicer homes had cast iron stoves. They had all kinds of dangerous things like knives and guns and kicking hooved animals. I doubt they had baby gates or fireplace guards or even playpens. With mom and dad so busy running the farm, trying to live off the land, how in the world did they keep the first few babies safe until there were older sibs to help watch? I have not heard much about babywearing among the pioneer families.

Did they use harsh discipline back then to keep their children safe. from getting too close to the hearth? Did they use something like the "blanket training" that the Duggars use now, where they "train" the baby to stay on a blanket? How do you plow a field with a 1 year old to care for (both men and women plowed the fields and planted seeds)? My grandpa tells stories of how they really did take the "be seen and not heard" seriously around adults.

Does our modern lifestyle with safer homes give us the luxury of not "training" our children in that harsh manner? Or was there some secret to childrearing back then that has been lost?

My dds both have free run of the house because it's been made safe for them. My 4yo is a free spirit and although she's getting better with age, I wouldn't call her extremely obedient. I am not sure I could trust her around dangerous farm equipment, horses, or a big burning hearth. Certainly not my 1yo.

Any thoughts?


----------



## Ruthla (Jun 2, 2004)

I think a lot of it had to do with trust- ie trusting their children more than many people trust their children today. Take the fireplace for example. Baby crawls near it, it feels hot, and baby doesn't come closer. In some ways, an open fire is actually safer than an electric stove because there's a "warning zone" where you feel the heat before you get burned. With knives, they probably taught the kids how to use them properly as soon as they were old enough to grab it. They also didn't have as much stuff- a family might have had one or two knives, not a set of 12, so it was easier to keep track of them.

And, let's not forget that they weren't always sucessful at keeping their babies safe- many children were maimed or killed in accidents that could have been easily prevented today.

I can't imagine how they could have possibly gotten anything done without wearing their infants! Toddlers probably got to roam free near where their parents were working. I imagine that the farm animals would know enough not to step on a toddler- horses have brains and instincts where tractors and SUVs don't!


----------



## USAmma (Nov 29, 2001)

I remember now, seeing a book based on pioneer days and the toddler was wearing an apron with very long strings. The mom was walking with her holding onto the apron strings like some people use the safety harnesses today. But you can't hold onto them all the time.


----------



## fly-mom (May 23, 2005)

Although it's not pioneer days, my DH's father heard some old realative talking about how they would lift the leg of a bed and put it on end of those long nightgowns the babies used to wear to keep them in one place sometimes. I have no idea if this is true. FIL is kind of a prankster so you can't take anything he says too seriously.


----------



## mrzmeg (Jul 16, 2002)

Quote:

And, let's not forget that they weren't always sucessful at keeping their babies safe- many children were maimed or killed in accidents that could have been easily prevented today.
Yup. 1 in 4 did not make it to age 4, and a good number of those deaths were _not_ from disease.


----------



## fly-mom (May 23, 2005)

Also- I am very interested in how ppl in "olden days" raised their children (not primitive ppl, but pioneer, industrial revolution, stuff like that). Does anyone know of any good books on the subject?


----------



## AngelBee (Sep 8, 2004)

Intresting thread...







:


----------



## Nora'sMama (Apr 8, 2005)

Yes, a very interesting thread! Do you remember in the Laura Ingalls Wilder book Farmer Boy, about the childhood of her husband, the story about _his_ father's family? The story about the kids forced to sit without talking or moving all day on Sunday, who snuck out to go sledding and got caught when a pig got hit with their sled (or something)? That was harsh, forcing kids to sit still for the entire day with no exceptions! That just stands out as one example I recall from the Little House books...another is when Pa spanks Laura, which made me so sad. It seems like most of these pioneer families were quite religious...the strain of American Christianity that believes in harsh punishment (a la the Pearls, Ezzo) seems to be an old one.


----------



## trmpetplaya (May 30, 2005)

The Continuum Concept deals with the issue of raising children among many dangers (of course it's about "primative" people) in the jungles of South America. They don't train their children... they do the exact opposite and the children are fine (around knives, fire pits, wild animals, rapids, etc). It's a somewhat difficult book to get through - I had to stop several times to digest what it said - because the concepts are so foreign to what we are taught in modern society, but it's well worth reading! And if the method works for people in the middle of the jungle then I'm sure it would work for pioneers as well. If they knew about it...

love and peace.


----------



## MamaBug (Jun 13, 2003)

:

Interesting! I am going to the library today maybe I will find something!


----------



## Alkenny (May 4, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *mrzmeg*
Yup. 1 in 4 did not make it to age 4, and a good number of those deaths were _not_ from disease.









Very true.

I know my grandma said that they used to strap the baby into a highchair and that's where the baby sat ALL DAY.


----------



## FancyPants (Dec 25, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Alkenny*







Very true.

I know my grandma said that they used to strap the baby into a highchair and that's where the baby sat ALL DAY.


I can believe this. And I don't think they were that safe. My grandad who grew up on a farm in southern Ireland told me about burning his hand in the fireplace when he wasn't quite 2. Some gypsies were camping nearby and they came to his house and applied a salve and his hand healed. This was a favorite story at his house because his family had not expected him to be able to heal from that (i.e. they expected his hand would be maimed for life). Also because it formed the core of my grandad's feelings on traditional healing (good) and made him want to be a doctor. He had a backer who wanted to send him to school but his dad died young and he had to help on the farm.








It is only the people who survived infancy that can tell us about life back then. Also, my granny was one of the older ones of 12. She said that older siblings basically raised younger ones in large families. She had 2 kids herself.


----------



## earthmama369 (Jul 29, 2005)

We took a tour of Shakespeare's purported house in England and I remember seeing an iron pole in the kitchen that ran from floor to ceiling. It had a cuff on it that rotated around and a hook attached to the cuff. Apparently the baby's diaper would be snagged on the hook and the baby would crawl around in a circle while mama did her kitchen thing.


----------



## wendy1221 (Feb 9, 2004)

We do a 17-18th c. reenactment here and I asked about this and was told that moms tied a strip of cloth around her baby's waist and her waist. Or she made a cage (like a playpen) out of cloth if she wasn't going to be moving around a lot. For non-mobile infants, they were swaddled and hung from hooks or tree limbs near where mom was working. nak


----------



## wendy1221 (Feb 9, 2004)

oh, and I agree w/ Ruthla. My parents have a cabin out in the woods w/ a wood stove for heat, and also we have nightly cook fires outside in the summer (there is nothing like venison, or the local free range bison sold nearby, cooked over an open hardwood fire.







) I went there almost every weekend when ds1 was a year old (and I was a single mom and my mom babysat ds every MWF, and they went there every Fri before I picked him up so I just stayed the weekend usually--even in the winter if it wasn't super cold.) He never got burnt. In fact, he seemed to have a much better grasp of hot and cold concepts than most kids I know. Ds2 has only been there a few times, but he runs away from whatever you're pointing at if you say "Careful! Hot!"Neither of them got burnt that I could tell anyway. Maybe got a little too close w/out actually getting burnt? Or maybe just feeling the heat radiate from the fire or cast iron stove was enough fo rthem to understand HOT! But at the same time, I think people have always hung their knives on the wall out of kids' reach, don't you think?


----------



## AngelBee (Sep 8, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *wendy1221*
We do a 17-18th c. reenactment here and I asked about this and was told that moms tied a strip of cloth around her baby's waist and her waist. Or she made a cage (like a playpen) out of cloth if she wasn't going to be moving around a lot. For non-mobile infants, they were swaddled and hung from hooks or tree limbs near where mom was working. nak

Wow....







:


----------



## hhurd (Oct 7, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *USAmma*
Does our modern lifestyle with safer homes give us the luxury of not "training" our children in that harsh manner?

I think we have many "luxuries" that allow a certain amount of leniency in childrearing. I also think that people in 19th century and earlier, by and large, were *braver* than we are now. We worry so much about every little thing when we're just about as safe as can be and still be alive. Our pioneer ancestors probably think we're big old wimps.

Oh, and there were child restraint devices in colonial America. I've seen a wooden walker type device common in the 17th and 18th centuries.


----------



## TigerTail (Dec 22, 2002)

leading strings- that was what they were called.

btw, i remember a thread in diapering years ago where we looked at antique diapering, & realized that everyone used straight pins!!! i think of that anytime i hear someone mention how safety pins are so hard to use, lol.

the book i just finished reading ('my lady scandalous', by jo manning, i think- a bio of grace dalrymple elliot, a georgian era courtesan. if you saw the film 'the lady & the duke' that came out a few years ago, about the french revolution, the duc d'orleans, & the 'lady' on trial, that was our grace... excellent book, & i loved seeing the pix of 18th century condoms!) gave the statistics for child mortality in england at the time, & ONE IN FOUR survived to age four. one in four!!!

so, no, there was no magic formula to keep kids perfectly safe- when i read continuum concept ideas, i keep this stuff in mind. 'one in four' is an unacceptable statistic to my modern ears. i'd rather be a mother hen than have that kind of attrition (and btw, there are a whole HOST of things in the kitchen & garden i wouldn't dare do while babywearing. i tried raking, once. oy.)

i remember picking rosehips in the wild roses once when i lived in the mountains, & i had to lay my baby down- bending over in a bunch of wild roses with a sling is not practical AT ALL, lol. but oh, how i was watching out for animals! talk about alert! i imagine life was like that a lot back then.

susan


----------



## USAmma (Nov 29, 2001)

Wow thanks for all your answers! Very interesting so far!

This thread brought to mind a friend in high school, who had a toddler brother die. The little boy stumbled into the camp fire and was burned so badly he didn't make it. I suppose accidents like that were more common back in the day.


----------



## meemee (Mar 30, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *wendy1221*
For non-mobile infants, they were swaddled and hung from hooks or tree limbs near where mom was working. nak

i wonder if that is the source for the nursery rhyme 'rock a bye baby on teh tree top' the most eeriest of all nursery rhymes that my dd loves and sings every single verse.

i also wonder if the pioneers got it from the native americans because i think they used to do that too.


----------



## mamawanabe (Nov 12, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *mrzmeg*
Yup. 1 in 4 did not make it to age 4, and a good number of those deaths were _not_ from disease.

I read in school that families often did not name their children for the first few years years since so many didn't make it past age two. S/he would just be called "the baby."


----------



## wendy1221 (Feb 9, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *meemee*
i wonder if that is the source for the nursery rhyme 'rock a bye baby on teh tree top' the most eeriest of all nursery rhymes that my dd loves and sings every single verse.

i also wonder if the pioneers got it from the native americans because i think they used to do that too.

Yes to the first part and no to the 2nd. They did it in the old country as well.









Even in Europe there were traditional ways to babywear also, btw. THey've just sadly been lost. Someone did find an older relative who remembered the way Welsh women would wear their babies in their shawls however. THere's a whole thread on it over on the babywearer forum (haven't been there in months.)


----------



## mamawanabe (Nov 12, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *wendy1221*
Yes to the first part and no to the 2nd. They did it in the old country as well.









I thought that ryhme was about the "pretender" to the thrown in England? We talked about it in my restoration lit class?


----------



## chersolly (Aug 29, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *USAmma*
I remember now, seeing a book based on pioneer days and the toddler was wearing an apron with very long strings. The mom was walking with her holding onto the apron strings like some people use the safety harnesses today. But you can't hold onto them all the time.

Oh, so that's where that saying "time to cut the apron strings" originated. Interesting.


----------



## wendy1221 (Feb 9, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *mamawanabe*
I thought that ryhme was about the "pretender" to the thrown in England? We talked about it in my restoration lit class?

Never heard that before, but I'm a chemist--I took as few writing and lit classes as I possibly could. :LOL

I did find this: http://www.indianchild.com/history_o...ery_ryhmes.htm

Ah, but now I found one debunking this: http://www.rhymesandsongs.com/nurser...nd_rhymes.html

Maybe we'll never know.


----------



## fly-mom (May 23, 2005)

I'm having a hard time finding books on this subject. Here's one that looks interesting though:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...glance&s=books

Here's another interesting site:
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/do_...e/frontier.cfm

Edited again because I misspelled interesting both times, two different ways


----------



## Poddi (Feb 18, 2003)

My grandma said kids in her family didn't get their formal names until 5 or 6. She had 10 children and only 4 survived until thatl age (and adulthood). I'm sure that's common in many places. (Of course the suvival rate for children was better than her record at that time, but she had milk supply problem and it was already amazing that 4 of them survived.) She held all her babies in her arm while working, sometimes leaving works undone because of that. She said she didn't know how long they would live so she liked to hold them as much as possible.

I hate hearing her talk about those, made me so sad.


----------



## TripMom (Aug 26, 2005)

Coming from a rural family, I was raised on the farm homesteaded by my great great grandfather. My great grandparents were alive into my college years. I heard a lot of these type of stories. From what I've heard, people died from accidents that wouldn't happen to day, from infections from minor wounds, in childbirth, from common curable diseases -- it was HARSH!

No such thing as GD - I think kids had to grow up fast and take responsibility. For instance - my grandmother talks about being sent to live with other families at the age of "7" to be a "hired girl"!

But yeah - if we were pioneers, I think we'd all have lost a few babies by now, and older children to disease and accidents. Its so sad . ..


----------



## USAmma (Nov 29, 2001)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Poddi*
My grandma said kids in her family didn't get their formal names until 5 or 6. She had 10 children and only 4 survived until thatl age (and adulthood). I'm sure that's common in many places. (Of course the suvival rate for children was better than her record at that time, but she had milk supply problem and it was already amazing that 4 of them survived.) She held all her babies in her arm while working, sometimes leaving works undone because of that. She said she didn't know how long they would live so she liked to hold them as much as possible.

I hate hearing her talk about those, made me so sad.









Wow, that's so sad.

My MIL had a milk supply problem too, and she lost it 2 weeks postpartum with SIL. She sent for a cow and they milked it and SIL had fresh cow's milk. It amazes me that she grew so well on that!


----------



## JenniferH (Feb 24, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *USAmma*
I remember now, seeing a book based on pioneer days and the toddler was wearing an apron with very long strings. The mom was walking with her holding onto the apron strings like some people use the safety harnesses today. But you can't hold onto them all the time.

I wonder if that's where the term "cutting the apron strings" came from?

ETA: That's what happens when you don't read the replies. Someone else beat me to it. :LOL


----------



## lemon (Dec 8, 2001)

I think about this a lot. Mostly because a really large percentage of the world still lives by cooking with fire, without highchairs & bouncy seats or other safety devices, etc.

One thing that no one's said yet is older siblings. I think it's pretty common for older siblings & other family members to be in charge of toddler safety while mom is working.

I also just read a short story in one of my old new yorkers about immigrant life in the last century. So sad. The dead babies. But the dead young people, also. Life expectancy wasn't very long for anyone, even if they got to adulthood there were so many hazards.

Which reminds me of another thing I think about: all the young dead mothers. Childbirth was itself a significant danger. So many kids left without mothers. Or fathers for that matter.


----------



## AntoninBeGonin (Jun 24, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *fly-mom*
Also- I am very interested in how ppl in "olden days" raised their children (not primitive ppl, but pioneer, industrial revolution, stuff like that). Does anyone know of any good books on the subject?


Huck's Raft is a newer book that deals with American childhood from the first settlements to modern times. It's well written and informative.

~Nay


----------



## AntoninBeGonin (Jun 24, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *mamawanabe*
I read in school that families often did not name their children for the first few years years since so many didn't make it past age two. S/he would just be called "the baby."


I read that's how it was in Puritan families.

~Nay


----------



## flyingspaghettimama (Dec 18, 2001)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *mamawanabe*
I read in school that families often did not name their children for the first few years years since so many didn't make it past age two. S/he would just be called "the baby."

Yes - I do geneology research sometimes, and when I was looking at gravesites and markers in Nebraska, there were many "Baby Boy Murphy" and "Baby Girl Thomson" etc - but they lived at least 1-3 years. The graves I was looking at were from the late 1800s through the early 1900s. There are also documents available online that detailed cause of death, etc - many were from influenza, infections, pneumonia, and...accidents. So many children were among the dead though in the mortuary records and gravesites, equalling the elderly. Black and immigrant children seemed to have more deaths, but the rate was generally evenly spread. It was very disturbing, and one of the first times I realized how medicine's advances, clean water, good food, and child safety awareness help so much to keep children alive, in comparison. I used to hold a very romanticized view of the olden days...now, I think there are things we could use again from those days - but also things I'm grateful for in today's world.


----------



## fuller2 (Nov 7, 2004)

I'm a grad student in history and am very interested in this topic, and could find basically nothing good written on the subject. (nothing written by an academic historian, that is) Also study the history of medicine, and yeah, lots of infant and child mortality. But if you made it to 40 or so, you had a good chance of living to your 60s at least.

I always wonder about diapers, because doing the laundry was no simple task then, and I can't imagine diapering a baby while you rode in a covered wagon for 3 months (or filling some of your precious wagon space with something like 3 dozen diapers!!). There had to have been some 'infant potty training' going on there. Most babies died of diarhhea--how did they handle it?

There's a great anthology out there called Mothers and Motherhood, about childrearing and motherhood in the US, if you want some 20th c. history. Also see a lot of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's work. (a Harvard professor with 6 kids)


----------



## USAmma (Nov 29, 2001)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *fuller2*
I always wonder about diapers, because doing the laundry was no simple task then, and I can't imagine diapering a baby while you rode in a covered wagon for 3 months (or filling some of your precious wagon space with something like 3 dozen diapers!!). There had to have been some 'infant potty training' going on there. Most babies died of diarhhea--how did they handle it?

If you do a search in the Diapering forum, there are threads that talk about that (old ones), and I believe there are even links to some articles on-line.


----------



## Nora'sMama (Apr 8, 2005)

Wow, a Harvard professor w/ 6 kids...I wonder how she manages that! She must have (at least one) nanny.

I wonder if the infant/child mortality rate was as high (1 in 4) wayyyy back before agriculture? Hunting & gathering is a less stressful, less labor-intensive lifestyle (assuming there are adequate resources to be hunted & gathered) and gathering (the moms' job) seems to lend itself better to caring for children than does being a "pioneer"...kwim?


----------



## flyingspaghettimama (Dec 18, 2001)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Nora'sMama*
I wonder if the infant/child mortality rate was as high (1 in 4) wayyyy back before agriculture? Hunting & gathering is a less stressful, less labor-intensive lifestyle (assuming there are adequate resources to be hunted & gathered) and gathering (the moms' job) seems to lend itself better to caring for children than does being a "pioneer"...kwim?

Ah, but what about that ol' saber-tooth tiger dilemma? And teaching kids which berries not to eat? And diarrhea...I grew up in the woods and our infrequent but intense encounters with "nature" (bobcats, cougars, and bears) were often a little too close for comfort at times. Our drinking water came from a spring that often got us sick, partially due to contamination issues. (Long, gross story - I'm sure it's possible to get healthy water from a spring though).

I think there are examples of hunter-gatherer societies today that are not exactly reassuring in the examples of infant mortality, if that alone is what we're looking at...but things are also a little more hard-nosed as well - I remember reading some extensive literature about a tribe in which the mother would not bond to the sickly newborn and instead leave the baby exposed so as to not invest resources in the losing proposition, as it were. Also, twins. Twins were seen as evil in the society (and the predetermined decision to leave them exposed got the Brazilian state involved - very messy). I think Steven Pinker has written about this, the biogenetic underpinnings of infant survival rates and maternal abandonment in traditional societies. It makes sense, in a very sad way.


----------



## maya44 (Aug 3, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *flyingspaghettimama*
I think Steven Pinker has written about this, the biogenetic underpinnings of infant survival rates and maternal abandonment in traditional societies. It makes sense, in a very sad way.


Also read "MotherNature" by Hrdry. Abandonment was common. "No colic" found in primiative societies? Uh, huh, sure. Try the fact that many babies who cried too much and were not soothed by being carried were just left to die!


----------



## mamatowill (Aug 23, 2004)

I studied is idea in university. Young infants were swaddled tightly which helped to prevent some injuries from being dropped etc. Also many times babies were tied standing up in tree stumps (even before they could stand)and left while the parents worked.


----------



## fly-mom (May 23, 2005)

Quote:

Also read "MotherNature" by Uhry. Abandonment was common. "No colic" found in primiative societies? Uh, huh, sure. Try the fact that many babies who cried too much and were not soothed by being carried were just left to die!
This is a great book (the author is Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, BTW). What did you think of the chapter(s) about the Foundling houses in Europe? I had never really even heard of these before. The whole infanticide/abandoment thing is such a hard issue to accept, but I think it's clear that infanticide has been much more common in our ev. past than we would like to think. I would imagine that this happened a lot in the American Frontier as well.

This is why I sometimes shake my head in disbelief when I hear, "We are not a child friendly society", as if lamenting "days of yore" when children were raised in innocence and with respect. I just have to think, 'compared to when?'.

From what I have been able to find about child rearing in the past, children have not even been thought of as real people for very long. For most of history it seems to me like 'childhood' has had a very different definition than it does today. Like those pioneer children would prob be expected to lend a hand as soon as they possibly could, and it wouldn't be a matter of coddling vs. fostering independence or anything like that. It would be a matter of survival!

(I'm not saying that we should not strive to treat our children with respect, BTW. Just saying that, historically, I don't think they have been.)

I had heard of that Huck's Raft book before it came out and remember thinking that I had to get it, but then I forgot about it. Thanks!


----------



## OakBerry (May 24, 2005)

I too have read the "1 in 4 did not survive" I think as far as safety, children learned to stay near their mothers as a matter of survival. Those who didn't, and wandered off, risked getting eaten by an animal (outside in the wild) or those who "explored" too much got burned in the cooking fire etc. I think that's why the "because I said so" mentality was so poplular. If kids didn't listen to their parents, ie, don't go down near the river, they could get seriously hurt or die.

My dad is 87 and when he was a boy his little sister died from a strep infection. My sister is named after her.







He also remembers his mom putting some kid of "harness" on him as a very young boy to keep him from running off outside.


----------



## Rivka5 (Jul 13, 2005)

About ten years ago I went on a research trip to remote farming villages in Transylvania, where the homes (and even the medical clinics) didn't have running water and most people had horses instead of cars. My part of the research included interviewing mothers about how they raised their children.

Babies were swaddled most of the time until they were about a year old, so that the mothers could do their work. Toddlers were typically cared for by slightly older children - the six-year-old might be responsible for the three-year-old and the one-year-old, for example.


----------



## Mylittlevowels (Feb 16, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *USAmma*
Wow thanks for all your answers! Very interesting so far!

This thread brought to mind a friend in high school, who had a toddler brother die. The little boy stumbled into the camp fire and was burned so badly he didn't make it. I suppose accidents like that were more common back in the day.









This happened to me when I was a toddler, except it was somebody's barbecue coals that they dumped on the ground and left there







We were at a church picnic and I toddled a little ways from my mother. I was still a bit unsteady on my feet, being a new walker, and fell into the coals. It burned right through my diaper and the hand I caught myself with was badly burnt. I still have some scars...


----------



## luckylady (Jul 9, 2003)

Quote:

Coming from a rural family, I was raised on the farm homesteaded by my great great grandfather. My great grandparents were alive into my college years. I heard a lot of these type of stories. From what I've heard, people died from accidents that wouldn't happen to day, from infections from minor wounds, in childbirth, from common curable diseases -- it was HARSH!

No such thing as GD - I think kids had to grow up fast and take responsibility. For instance - my grandmother talks about being sent to live with other families at the age of "7" to be a "hired girl"!
I agree - I have been doing a lot of family research for an album for DD about what a great time this is to be a girl. History is quite interesting and SAD. I would NOT have wanted to live back then. Life was hard and cruel.

My great-grandmother was pulled out of school at 8 to go to work, as were all of her siblings. Aside from the high infant/toddler mortality rate, kids were put to work. Children were seen and not heard and life was in general pretty violent. From what I have gathered from family diaries and letters and stories is that life for the children was pretty much work and religious studies. And LOTS of whippings. kneeling in a corner on rice was also a common practice. Pretty cruel. My own grandmother had a sister who died of scarlet fever when she was four.

Has anyone watched that show on PBS about pioneer living? It's pretty interesting - these people worked hard all the time. I see this work ethic still in existence in my grandma and in my DH's grandparents. They still grow their own fruits and veggies and can them for the winter. Come winter they pretty much don't leave the house. Amazing. they are almost 90.


----------



## TigerTail (Dec 22, 2002)

the book i read said one in four LIVED, not one in four didn't. urgh! altho' i turned it back in & didn't check out the footnotes. and that was rural & urban england in the 18th century, not pioneers!

my mother had two siblings that died, out of five children- one at two & one at eight. my poor grandma.









good book recommends, thanks.

OT- so rock-a-bye baby was about james the pretender? how so? i know there was speculation that he was not really james II's son, that they subbed another baby into his mother's labor room a la changeling, but there were eyewitnesses to his birth who refuted that. i am trying to wrap my mind around that... i don't think peter & ione skye's classic nursery rhymes book covered that.

susan


----------



## momto l&a (Jul 31, 2002)

I have to say I kinda disagree with so many children dying in the earlier centuries. In doing my ancestry there many large families and the greater majority made it to adulthood.

As an example my great grandfather was one of 11, only 2 died. One she must have thought was already weak as the mother had her dh pack boards for a coffin before they started across the plains in a wagon, he was 19 months old. The second child was lost to diphtheria she was 10 years old.

Wish I could figure out for all of the 2,469 people I have in our family tree that died as children. I am pretty sure it would be a low figure.

I was always told how many died as children in earlier years but then as I started doing genealogy I found it not to be true, at least for our family.

As to child safety I will have to think about all I have read and heard from oldtimers.


----------



## flyingspaghettimama (Dec 18, 2001)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *momto l&a*








I have to say I kinda disagree with so many children dying in the earlier centuries. In doing my ancestry there many large families and the greater majority made it to adulthood.

Hey! What're you saying? I got weak genes?








My families had 12-13 kids living on average; 7 or so dying. Ha, they were a productive people, if a bit afflicted. And they died from things that they might not die from today - my family (admittedly, an extremely poor immigrant one) had adult-onset diabetes that took down the adults; lack of medical care and hard living conditions (migrant, itinerant workers) took down the babies.

It was actually difficult sometimes to spot the ones who died, because they wouldn't show up on census records, etc, until I went to the cemeteries or saw a kid on one census and missing on another and that led to other discoveries...


----------



## wannabe (Jul 4, 2005)

Well, the simple answer is that they didn't - think of all those family trees with young deaths in them.

Each generation in my family tree had about 13 kids - about 50% would make it to adulthood.

For example, my g-g-g-aunt was twelve when she was outside making soap over an open fire. Her skirts caught fire and she died. :shudder


----------



## wannabe (Jul 4, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Poddi*
My grandma said kids in her family didn't get their formal names until 5 or 6. She had 10 children and only 4 survived until thatl age (and adulthood). I'm sure that's common in many places. (Of course the suvival rate for children was better than her record at that time, but she had milk supply problem and it was already amazing that 4 of them survived.) She held all her babies in her arm while working, sometimes leaving works undone because of that. She said she didn't know how long they would live so she liked to hold them as much as possible.

I hate hearing her talk about those, made me so sad.









Oh that is so incredibly sad - I'm holding my little one to me now and crying. It makes this hard core lactivist say thank god for formula.

Quote:

I always wonder about diapers, because doing the laundry was no simple task then,
I think they didn't wash for anything but poo, for a start - wee just got dried out and put back on.


----------



## maya44 (Aug 3, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *fly-mom*
This is a great book (the author is Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, BTW). What did you think of the chapter(s) about the Foundling houses in Europe?


You are right its Hrdy. I mixed up the author with a legal book I am reading now (that is what you get for posting at 1 in the morning. :LOL )

In any event. I thought that stuff was fascinating. It always just kills me when people here romantisize the past!


----------



## fireflies~for~me (Jun 24, 2003)

:


----------



## AntoninBeGonin (Jun 24, 2005)

In the book Huck's Raft the author (a college professor, I believe) compares the infancy and childhoods of two very distinct sets of peoples, Native Americans and Puritans.

Native Americans practiced what we would call AP today:
Extended breastfeeding
No spanking or other punitive disciplines
Children were allowed to be children, to play and have fun
If an infant or child died the mother would often be found mourning at the grave a year later.

Puritans:
Wetnursed their infants until the mother's milk came in. The infants were weaned when the first tooth came in. I don't remember the author making the connection, but the Puritans had a much higher infant death rate than the Native Americans.
As we know, the Puritans spanked and whipped their kids, along with other harsh punishments.
Children were expected to grow up fast. The adage for the time was "Seen but not heard." Playtime was leisure time, it was tolerated, but everyone knew those kids could be doing something better.
A child or baby dying was considered an act of god, just something that happened. I'm sure the parents grieved, but it was not on the same scope as the Native Americans.

It was interesting to read about how many Puritan children ran away--some several times--to live with the closest Native American Tribe. It was completely opposite of the information I'd read in fictional novels, about how those "mean ol' Indians always kidnappin' the settlers kids" that I would love to read more about that subject. I'm the type to believe a well-written historical book (with tons of footnotes) more than a dimestore novel any day.










~Nay


----------



## Nora'sMama (Apr 8, 2005)

Nay, I would love to read that book. I knew that all cultures were not always so harsh with children. I was also thinking about the tribes in the Continuum Concept, and some of the cultures mentioned in Our Babies Ourselves. I remember in OBO there was one tribe (South American?) where they were totally AP with infants and young kids but then pretty harsh when the kids reached a certain age.

I think if you want your kids to survive in harsh conditions, AP is the only way to go!

I wonder where the 'weaning at the 1st tooth' custom came from with the Puritans?


----------



## Nora'sMama (Apr 8, 2005)

I also wanted to say that I think the way a given culture treats their babies & kids has a lot to do w/ the economic system. Right now kids are only useful to our economy as consumers, not as workers, and so they are exploited psychologically by advertising, but not physically like kids of an agricultural society (eg. the American "pioneers") where they would be expected to do hard physical labor and be basically responsible for themselves at a young age.


----------



## EnviroBecca (Jun 5, 2002)

Quote:

Do you remember in the Laura Ingalls Wilder book Farmer Boy, about the childhood of her husband, the story about his father's family? The story about the kids forced to sit without talking or moving all day on Sunday, who snuck out to go sledding and got caught when a pig got hit with their sled (or something)? That was harsh, forcing kids to sit still for the entire day with no exceptions!
If anyone is looking for this particular story, it's actually in Little House in the Big Woods and is about Laura's grandpa's childhood. Pa tells the story after Laura says, "I hate Sunday!" because, although not forced to be completely still and silent, she is not allowed to play.







I think that's a pretty weird interpretation of the Sabbath! We live in a neighborhood with lots of Orthodox Jews, and I'm pleased to see that their Sabbath rules, which are so strict about not "working", allow the whole family to enjoy the playground!









We've been reading Laura Ingalls Wilder to the baby (less for his edification than because I want to read the books again and want my partner, who never read them, to get a chance







) and one of the things that really strikes me is how competent those kids were from an early age, probably because of their parents' expectations not only that the kids would help because they were needed but also that the kids would naturally WANT to do helpful and responsible things--very Continuum!


----------



## TripMom (Aug 26, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *EnviroBecca*
and one of the things that really strikes me is how competent those kids were from an early age, probably because of their parents' expectations not only that the kids would help because they were needed but also that the kids would naturally WANT to do helpful and responsible things--very Continuum!

A little OT -- but you hit on a good point. And this is a point that GD/PD writers make -- one of the reasons that strict authoritarian discipline styles worked years ago (and don't work now) is because years ago there was 1) lots of modeling of subservience, compliance which doesn't exist so much today (mom subservient to dad, dad subservient to boss, etc) and 2) children were given a lot of responsibility because their help was truly needed - so they felt quite useful and tended to adhere to rules, etc.

Still exists on family farms today - my father and his siblings had responsibilities everyday on the farm that were real and necessary. He learned to drive farm machinery when he was seven, cared for the livestock and worked in the fields.

Even in my generation, I learned to drive farm machinery when I was 12ish, we had no livestock by that time, but I was expected to work harvest for the summer crops (we were in school during fall harvest, so was not asked to help there - but my father would be pulled out of school to help).

Anyway - its a very interesting point in understanding "why" strict authoritarian style discipline was effective years ago -- and why its not now.


----------



## mamawanabe (Nov 12, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Nora'sMama*
I also wanted to say that I think the way a given culture treats their babies & kids has a lot to do w/ the economic system. Right now kids are only useful to our economy as consumers, not as workers, and so they are exploited psychologically by advertising, but not physically like kids of an agricultural society (eg. the American "pioneers") where they would be expected to do hard physical labor and be basically responsible for themselves at a young age.

interesting


----------



## USAmma (Nov 29, 2001)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *AntoninBeGonin*
It was interesting to read about how many Puritan children ran away--some several times--to live with the closest Native American Tribe. It was completely opposite of the information I'd read in fictional novels, about how those "mean ol' Indians always kidnappin' the settlers kids" that I would love to read more about that subject. I'm the type to believe a well-written historical book (with tons of footnotes) more than a dimestore novel any day.









~Nay

Have you read about Mary Jemison yet? She was kidnapped and raised by Native Americans, but later when she had the chance for "freedome" she chose to stay with her adopted tribe. She ended up marrying and having children in the tribe, owning land, and being a very well-known woman in her time.


----------



## lemon (Dec 8, 2001)

I am really enjoying this thread.

But on the subject of not romanticizing the past, I think it's a little unwise to romanticize Native American childhoods as well. I'm sure it varied a lot from nation to nation, and from family to family.

And equally unwise to romanticize children running away or being captured, in either direction. I mean, who wants to lose their children? Or their parents? Usually, no one.

Though I have to admit that "Indian Captive", Lois Lenski's version of the Mary Jamison story, was a favorite of mine growing up. Yes, I am a true white girl...


----------



## Ellien C (Aug 19, 2004)

and while we're not waxing nostalgic about the past, I have to add my standard disclaimer that Wilder's daughter Rose, who published the books, was a staunch Libertarian - out to show that people could live on their own without any goverment support. There is some criticism that the books overstate the families independence and isolation.


----------



## Laurel (Jan 30, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *TripMom*
He learned to drive farm machinery when he was seven, .

Reading this reminded me of something my grandpa once told me. When their family was moving from one town to another, his 7-year-old brother was placed in the seat of the wagon with a load of goods, the horse was hitched up, and his brother drove the wagon from their old town to their new home--a distance of 60-70 miles.


----------



## Bethanydear (May 14, 2003)

Very interesting post, and I've requested some of the book listed from the library.


----------



## sweetangelbrynlie (Jun 23, 2005)

My great grandmother told me before she died that she would tie my grandmother to a chair with her dress ties that are on the back of a dress, she would also tie her to a tree when she was gardening using the dress strings too.

She made their dresses with very very long string ties on the back for this reason. She puts strings on the boys outfits she made too.


----------



## Ravin (Mar 19, 2002)

I wonder how many crib deaths back then were of babies strangling in the long strings on their clothes?

Not to romanticise hunting and gathering, but in a lot of ways anthropological research has shown that people in such societies (the ones that survived long enough to be studied anyway) often had easier lives, relatively speaking. Both hunting and gathering and extensive, "slash and burn" long-fallow horticulture are associated with having to spend fewer hours in food production to meet subsistence needs than with intensive agriculture, leaving more free/social time for everyone, and are also associated with minimal to nonexistent wealth differences between families.

Many "AP" things aren't consistent, though. Take the Yanomamo. Their babies sleep with the mother until about age 4. They sleep in hammocks, and women have the lowest ones, often very close to the fire. Babies sometimes roll out of the hammock and into the fire--though not as often if sleeping with their mothers, which is why they don't get their own hammock until they're 4 or so. But for all of this, and extended breastfeeding, they are overall an aggressive people and hitting/fierceness is encouraged in little boys from infancy.

Every society is different. Agriculture, the great human experiment, allowed more people to live on less land. But often the tradeoff was that they developed more disease (most of the 'childhood'/epidemic diseases are a legacy of being sedentary, living in condense groups, and living in close proximity to domestic animals from whom the diseases jumped), suffered more malnutrition from a less varied diet, often developed less than healthy ways of dealing with new problems. Sometimes the simplest things could make a huge difference. For example, in some parts of West Africa people traditionally chew the twig of a certain tree and use it for a toothbrush. In areas where they do this, people are dentally healthier and keep their teeth. In areas where the tree doesn't grow or this natural toothbrush isn't used, teeth rot at a young age, which takes a toll on health overall.


----------



## ShadowMom (Jun 25, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Ravin*
I wonder how many crib deaths back then were of babies strangling in the long strings on their clothes?

Not to romanticise hunting and gathering, but in a lot of ways anthropological research has shown that people in such societies (the ones that survived long enough to be studied anyway) often had easier lives, relatively speaking. Both hunting and gathering and extensive, "slash and burn" long-fallow horticulture are associated with having to spend fewer hours in food production to meet subsistence needs than with intensive agriculture, leaving more free/social time for everyone, and are also associated with minimal to nonexistent wealth differences between families.

I did some more reading on the !Kung San after reading "Our Babies, Ourselves". Their hunter/gatherer way of life is giving way to more village life, unfortunately. But, the hunter/gatherer ways didn't sound so bad to me.

They aren't/weren't religious.... worked around 25-30 hours a week... lived to an average age of 60.

I'm sure if I knew more in-depth about them that it wouldn't sound so appealing. But still, if I compare that way of life to our incredibly fast-paced, busywork, corporate-obsessed lives, it seems like maybe they know a secret that we don't! LOL.

I also read a book about the Pygmies called The Forest People. Very interesting book. However, it's also a good study in how western bias can affect our study of other peoples (it was written by a male anthropologist).

Quote:

For example, in some parts of West Africa people traditionally chew the twig of a certain tree and use it for a toothbrush. In areas where they do this, people are dentally healthier and keep their teeth. In areas where the tree doesn't grow or this natural toothbrush isn't used, teeth rot at a young age, which takes a toll on health overall.
This is interesting to me as well... I once heard that some anthropologists have a theory that tooth decay is a result of cultivated crops. I've never had time to look into it any further than hearing about it, but that fascinates me!


----------



## joandsarah77 (Jul 5, 2005)

I have a book called 'The World Of The Baby' by Georgina O'Hara. This covers
Pregnancy, birthing and babies of times gone by of various contries, but mainly England and America.

Some intresting snipits.
-Babies were swadled rather like an Egyptian mummy. For reasons of warmth, to induce sleep, protection from wild animals, to keep the baby imobile, mask ouders (boy I bet they were high) Also it was believed this was needed to grow strong. The baby would then be placed in a cradle or suspended from a peg on the wall!

-If swadling wasn't enough, energetic babies were also tied or laced into the cradle, creating the need for knobs on the cradles.( which I guess is were those decrative ones a few years back came from)

-The lucky baby was breast feed by it's mother, with unruly children believed to be the result of inferior milk. Or a wet nurse was used who had to be of a gentle nature and of clear complextion so that baby would absorb these charactaristics. Other unfortunits were raised on pap made of flour and water, closly resembling wall paper paste.







Tea, coffee, wine, beer and moist cake were also given. Sometimes babies were even put directly under goats to suckle.

-Sick babies were often treated by aplying leeches. Such as on the nose for catarrh, or on the throut for croup.









- Older babies would be placed in baby walkers. The child stood in a hoop padded with leather that was atached to an upright pole which the baby could walk around. Poor families sometimes placed the baby in a hollowed out tree stump. There were apantly 'pens' like cages from the 15 century. From the 19th century there were also baby jumpers.


----------



## TigerTail (Dec 22, 2002)

reading hrdy's book right now, & i have to say some things are teeth-grittingly annoying. there is a great deal of politicizing, and passages like 'the next time you hear a nursing mother who unexpectedly finds herself pregnant grumble that breastfeeding did not suppress *her* ovulation, remind her of her primate past and all the ancient evenings her ancestors spent up in trees. In her eagerness to get a good night's rest, she probably overlooked the importance of breastfeeding through the night. She forgot, or more probably never considered, that for seventy million years, as mothers dozed on & off till dawn, infants whiled away those sunless hours by alternating between right nipple & left. As they suckled, they triggered the release of ancient compounds dating from... past lives that delay the next conception.'

oh, bite me, sarah hrdy. she wrote this in '99, & in '86 i was a mothering & dr sears reader who knew this stuff already. and coslept, nursing all night with no supplementation. and got my period at 8 weeks postpartum (then another 8 weeks, & then a big 3 months.) couldn't possibly be an evolutionary adaption from generations of mothers overflowing with milk & an abundant food supply, huh?

she makes an awful lot of condescending assumptions like this throughout the book so far. i am not impressed with the 'brilliant' tag all over the blurbs at the back- i am less than dazzled. i will plod on, mostly because i'd like access to the historical documents she was privileged to read, but didn't desire to leave my infants for 6 week study trips as she did to get to. i see her as an apologist for anti-attachment parenting so far. scientists with an agenda can be irritating. if she'd just present evidence & allow people to draw their own conclusions it would be must less of a trial to get through- does she suppose the audience for this sort of book to be illiterate sheeple? (she certainly gives the impression that she considers them less 'brilliant' than herself! whether that is true or not is debatable depending on the reader- she is certainly no stupe- but it is not an endearing attitude.)

susan


----------



## flyingspaghettimama (Dec 18, 2001)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *joandsarah77*

-Sick babies were often treated by aplying leeches. Such as on the nose for catarrh, or on the throut for croup.









OT: Hey, don't knock leeches. They are hep again, although maybe they don't help much with croup, I imagine. Really, I'm not kidding. Mostly in cases of amputation, microsurgery, reattachment, and issues with sepsis (blood infections) there has been much study and positive results using leeches. There have been some great articles in the New Yorker and NYT lately about leeching, and after reading them, I wished that the therapy would've been available at the time to my husband, who lost some bits 'n' pieces in a factory accident.


----------



## ShadowMom (Jun 25, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *suseyblue*
...and coslept, nursing all night with no supplementation. and got my period at 8 weeks postpartum (then another 8 weeks, & then a big 3 months.) couldn't possibly be an evolutionary adaption from generations of mothers overflowing with milk & an abundant food supply, huh?

This confused me







What do you mean by that?


----------



## TigerTail (Dec 22, 2002)

hmmmn. sometimes i am not too clear with toddlers running amuck between my legs, but still not sure what you didn't get- my situation (sometimes i forget that 97% of the people posting here now are not the same little clique who went thru my later pregnancies here starting in 2000, lol- i posted 'aunt flo came back' or one of those threads), or my hypothesis...

in the book (discussed earlier in the thread, which i said i'd read, & now partially have & giving a quasi-review) she discusses evolutionary adaptation a lot... i'd was commenting for people who might've read the book or been interested in it, sorry, i was wandering a little OT.

my point, anyway, was that i was irritated by the whole 'you might let the poor silly ignorant fool know...' tone of the piece; her assumption that anyone fertile early in their postpartum period was necessarily not *doing* it right was presumptious (as momtuzuma tuatara would say) twaddle. people differ, and if she is so gung-ho about evolutionary adaption to various circumstances she might look into that as a reason for close-spaced pregnancies, instead of assuming the mother was a neglectful ditz who won't nurse her baby at night.

not completely OT, as it throws the rest of her conclusions into doubt (if i'd known she had an anti-AP agenda- and she does, it is prevalent throughout the book so far- i'd have been more skeptical to begin with.)

anyway, with two sick kids, that's as lucid as my prose gets :LOL. hope i was somewhat less opaque. (i've edited twice & am still not doing v well!)

susan


----------



## johub (Feb 19, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *KristiMetz*
This is interesting to me as well... I once heard that some anthropologists have a theory that tooth decay is a result of cultivated crops. I've never had time to look into it any further than hearing about it, but that fascinates me!


Actually the fossil record shows this clearly. The fossil record is primarily teeth. For most of our history they have been able to withstand millions of years. Anyway, the first decay showed up in the Levant shortly after the introduction of agriculture.
For a couple of hundred thousand years human teeth show no signs of decay.


----------



## jrayn (Jul 6, 2005)

the book "the 7 daughters of eve" I believe the author mentioned that a woman from a hunting/gathering tribe lost all her teeth and that meant an imminent death, she was left behind to die. It has been a while since I read it though.


----------



## be11ydancer (Dec 2, 2003)

:


----------



## fly-mom (May 23, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *suseyblue*
reading hrdy's book right now, & i have to say some things are teeth-grittingly annoying. there is a great deal of politicizing, and passages like 'the next time you hear a nursing mother who unexpectedly finds herself pregnant grumble that breastfeeding did not suppress *her* ovulation, remind her of her primate past and all the ancient evenings her ancestors spent up in trees. In her eagerness to get a good night's rest, she probably overlooked the importance of breastfeeding through the night. She forgot, or more probably never considered, that for seventy million years, as mothers dozed on & off till dawn, infants whiled away those sunless hours by alternating between right nipple & left. As they suckled, they triggered the release of ancient compounds dating from... past lives that delay the next conception.'

She is fairly political, but she admits this several times in the book. But to be honest, your own personal experience aside, many people ARE NOT aware of these facts. Not every audience is going to be as aware of these things as the mothers here at MDC are. There are biological differences between mothers. I bf, but side carred the crib, and cut down nursing frequency fairly early due to the fact that I worked and had to pump on a schedule. I cut down to two to three night nursings fairly early and my period didn't return until dd weaned completely. So for me, it was quite different from what you experienced. But generally speaking, using bf as contraception is less likely to work if you don't nurse enough. That is true regardless of various personal anecdotes to the contrary.

Quote:

oh, bite me, sarah hrdy. she wrote this in '99, & in '86 i was a mothering & dr sears reader who knew this stuff already. and coslept, nursing all night with no supplementation. and got my period at 8 weeks postpartum (then another 8 weeks, & then a big 3 months.) couldn't possibly be an evolutionary adaption from generations of mothers overflowing with milk & an abundant food supply, huh?

she makes an awful lot of condescending assumptions like this throughout the book so far. i am not impressed with the 'brilliant' tag all over the blurbs at the back- i am less than dazzled. i will plod on, mostly because i'd like access to the historical documents she was privileged to read, but didn't desire to leave my infants for 6 week study trips as she did to get to. i see her as an apologist for anti-attachment parenting so far. scientists with an agenda can be irritating. if she'd just present evidence & allow people to draw their own conclusions it would be must less of a trial to get through- does she suppose the audience for this sort of book to be illiterate sheeple? (she certainly gives the impression that she considers them less 'brilliant' than herself! whether that is true or not is debatable depending on the reader- she is certainly no stupe- but it is not an endearing attitude.)

susan
Well- I have a PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology, so I don't really think of myself as an illiterate sheeple, but I loved the book. I also didn't see her as condescending, and I didn't see her so much as an apologist for anti-AP, but more as a more balanced and realistic representation of how mothering really has occurred throughout pre-history and history, in the context of different cultural expectations. It is quite a departure from the idea that motherhood automatically makes a woman a self sacrificing martyr to her children, or even that a mother always, and in all cases, is more concerned with the welfare of her children than anything else. I think she makes a good case that a mother's care of her children is dependant on many things, including, the resources she has available at the time, her reproductive condition, cultural biases at the time, etc... Sure, she makes some opinionated conclusions from her research, and not being an illiterate sheeple, I can also make the conclusion that she has a personal agenda as well. She's allowed to do that and you can agree or disagree with her as you see fit.

You might find the second portion of the book to be more interesting, after she gets through the comparative biology portion of the book. I don't know, but I'd be interested in hearing your opinion when you get done with the book


----------

