essay about child rearing

From Horror To Hope: The Evolution Of Childrearing

(Photo Caption:  Young boys and girls working in the spinning room of the Cornell Mill in Fall River, Massachusetts. January 1912 photo by Lewis Hine/ Shutterstock .)

“The history of childhood is a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken. The further back in history one goes, the lower the level of child care, and the more likely children are to be killed, abandoned, terrorised, and sexually abused.”   — Lloyd de Mause

Parents today are bombarded with more conflicting advice on how to raise their children, by a greater number of ‘experts’, than ever before. As soon as their first-born takes a first breath, well-meaning friends, family and professionals crowd their doorway clutching towers of books, all penned by the most highly accredited child care specialists. Some say you must use ‘controlled crying’; others say ‘co-sleeping’ is better. Some say breastfeed on demand, others recommend schedules. Still others say just trust your own instincts. The bright side is the fact that we have so many contradictory views shows how hard our civilisation is working to improve the child’s quality of life.

A useful way to get some perspective is to look at the historical evolution of childrearing practices. When I first began to read about this history, I was confronted by some truths about our childrearing heritage that are shocking, hard to believe, and difficult to come to terms with.

Lloyd de Mause, principal founder of the fast growing field of psychohistory (an analysis of the way in which psychological matters influence social changes and world events) examined over 800 historical references before compiling his essay: The Evolution Of Childhood (1982). His findings have been corroborated internationally by a large number of psycho-historians. De Mause’s analysis of childrearing practices in the Western world throughout the ages yielded some important findings: the first is that the care of children has evolved in distinct periods or stages, much like patterns of biological evolution. The second finding was that the further back one delves into Western history, the worse these practices become. Historical childhood is hardly the fairy tale that many of us might have romantically or nostalgically dreamed up. I was dismayed to find, through the work of de Mause and others, that: ‘The history of childhood is a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken. The further back in history one goes, the lower the level of child care, and the more likely children are to be killed, abandoned, terrorised, and sexually abused’. Indeed, de Mause’s research has unearthed some unthinkable horrors that were the norms accepted and perpetrated by our forebears.

The Infanticidal Period

De Mause has categorised into periods the different modes of parent–child relations throughout Western civilisation. He refers to the first period — dating roughly up to the fourth century AD — as ‘Infanticidal’. There are hundreds of references to infanticide of both legitimate and illegitimate children in the Western world — an accepted and everyday occurrence which only slowly began to abate by the Middle Ages. Small children and babies were routinely thrown into rivers, flung into cess trenches, or simply exposed to die on roadsides or in the wilderness. Surviving children would have been witness to this barbarous, and surely terrifying, activity. As girls were more frequently disposed of than boys, the documented result was significant imbalances in male–female population ratios.

Until the fourth century AD, neither law nor public opinion found infanticide wrong, in either Greece or Rome. Meanwhile, all neighbouring European nations were continuing to sacrifice children to gods. (The recent discovery of three mummified victims of child sacrifice in the Andes, serves as a reminder of the universality of this custom.) It is also deeply disturbing that many of the children who were allowed to live were used as servants and sex objects. Child labour in the home and paedophilia were condoned and encouraged in all echelons of society, and were openly depicted in both the art and literature of this period in our history.

The Abandoning Mode

A different means of coping with the anxiety and burden posed by the rearing of children began to emerge around the fourth century AD. An ‘Abandoning’ mode of parent–child relations, which persisted into the thirteenth century, was characterised by parents sending their children away, often for several years. References abound depicting children dispatched en masse to wet-nurses, to monasteries or nunneries, as hostages in lieu of debt repayments, or to work as servants or apprentices. Wealthy parents who could afford servants would engage in only the most negligible child care, even if their children stayed at home.

Child sale was a widespread European practice, and in Russia was only outlawed as late as the nineteenth century. Amongst all classes of Welsh, Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians, it was common for parents to send their children away to be reared until around seventeen years of age. It was rare, not only among the wealthy, but also among many who could ill afford wet-nurse services, for mothers to nurse their own babies. In Rome, professional wet-nurses gathered daily around the designated ‘Colonna Lactaria’ to sell their services.

Vast numbers of city dwellers would allow their babies to remain with their assigned wet-nurses in the country until weaning. Though it may defy belief, a survey conducted as late as 1780 by the Police Chief of Paris, found that of the 21,000 children born annually in the city, 17,000 were sent out to the country to wet-nurse. Of the 1,400 that were lucky enough to stay at home with their parents, only 700 were nursed by their own mothers. Much to the revulsion of European mothers, England took the lead in slowly re-introducing the mother–child breastfeeding bond. Wet-nursing, however, did not disappear until the eighteenth century in England and America, and the twentieth century in France and Germany.

The Ambivalent Mode

Fourteenth-century Europe saw a proliferation of childrearing instruction manuals. It was as if parents collectively began to allow their children to remain close to them, but only under strict conditions of non-demanding behaviour. De Mause refers to this growing new parenting style as the ‘Ambivalent’ mode, the emphasis of which was to beat (often severely) or mould children into convenient shape. An examination of over 200 pre-eighteenth century statements on childrearing advice found that the majority expressed approval of severe beatings, whereas only three discouraged child-beating of any kind. One thirteenth century article of law begins with: ‘If one beats a child until it bleeds, then it will remember…’

Viewed from a modern perspective, most children before the eighteenth century could be classed as ‘battered children’. Instruments such as whips, canes, birches and shackles for feet were commonplace. It was not unusual for children to be restrained with stocks around their feet during study, tied to chairs, wrapped in restrictive corsets, made to wear iron collars for ‘posture’, or forced into standing stools to prevent crawling. This abusive form of child rearing was not linked to social class or family income, and was prevalent among both rich and poor.

A particularly bizarre, yet universal, fashion was the excessively tight and prolonged swaddling of babies and infants. Bandages were used to completely immobilise babies into rigid cocoon shapes. Designed as inescapable bonds, swaddling could be so tight and complex as to require over an hour to completely dress an infant. Doubtless this practice rendered the unfortunate infant more manageable. With a minimum maintenance, controlled child being the goal, it is little wonder that this kind of swaddling continued in England and America until the eighteenth century, and in France and Germany until last century. Also in vogue were the old-fashioned whippings, which only started going out of style in Europe and the USA around mid-nineteenth century, continuing longest in Germany. The earliest individual accounts of childhood without beatings found by de Mause occurred between 1690 and 1750.

The Intrusive Mode

The ‘Intrusive’ mode of parenting, which began in the eighteenth century, saw the first signs of empathy creeping into the closer ties forged between parent and child. Although the prevalence and severity of child beating abated, strict obedience was demanded in exchange for love and acceptance. Rigid moral codes replaced some of the physical abuse, leading to a reduction in infant mortality. As child battery and abandonment receded, the increased health, freedom and vitality of children posed new challenges which parents met by becoming intrusively over-controlling. The objectives of parenting at this age were to conquer the child’s will, emotions, impulses and needs. Children were to be ‘seen and not heard’.

Striking at the heart of a child’s autonomy, their sense of their own bodily rhythms and pleasure, there arose a widespread tendency toward early toilet-training, and an obsession with prohibiting masturbation. The use of a variety of surgical interventions aimed at preventing masturbation peaked between 1850 and 1879. Doctors were prescribing a range of gruesome genital restraint devices, akin to instruments of bondage and torture, which were most popular between 1880 and 1904. After two centuries of such assault on children’s genitals, these methods had died out in Europe by 1925.

The Socialising Mode

The domestication and control of the child became less brutal and more subtle as the ‘Socialising’ mode of parenting was ushered in at the close of the nineteenth century. Even preceding modern contraceptive methods, a drop in birthrates reflected parents’ desire to give more care to each child. The aim remained, however, to instill parental values and goals into children rather than producing self-directed and free-thinking individuals.

Earlier trends of over control, terrorising or beating were replaced by spanking and psychological manipulation. It is de Mause’s assessment that this modality continues to guide and inform most parent–child relationships today. The focus of this mode is on pedagogy (child training) rather than on the subjugation or conquest of the child. The child is to be tamed or trained, as early as possible, to conform to social norms, to venerate authority, to be a well-behaved or ‘good’ child. The ‘good’ child is obedient, does not question or negotiate, restricts passion and emotion, absorbs parental values and has minimal needs. Under the ‘Socialising’ mode, even babies are expected to be ‘good’! One of the most frequently-asked questions regarding infants seems to be, ‘Is he/she a good baby?’

Although the central theme of behaviour control persists in the new millennium, we have certainly become progressively less extreme in our efforts to dominate children. Instead, we have become more sophisticated and scientific with modern behaviour modification methods, while at the same time allowing our children a far greater range of self-expressive behaviours. Modern behaviour modification methods such as ‘controlled crying’, proliferate because they successfully manipulate those children’s behaviours which are deemed undesirable. Scant regard is given, however, to the possible emotional consequences for the child.

The evolution of parent–child relations mapped by de Mause and others shows a distinct, gradual development away from violence or manipulative control, and towards the growing use of empathy and dialogue with the child. Parental feelings of anxiety and overwhelm caused our forebears to project into the child images of evil and the demonic, requiring punishment or even exorcism. Today, we are more likely to project onto children that they are small tyrants or manipulators, whenever their needs are too great for our limited or exhausted patience. Remnant fears from earlier periods warn us not to ‘spoil’ children, that we must deny their needs, not show too much empathy lest they totally over-run our lives. A favourite warning of the ‘Socialising’ mode is: ‘You mustn’t let your baby get control over you.’ This is a disturbing and alarming denial of babies’ abject helplessness.

An Emerging New Mode

Psycho-historically, we find ourselves at the cusp of an emergent new mode of childrearing which Lloyd de Mause names the ‘Helping’ mode. Progressively, each new mode has signified more nurturing, and less blame on the child for parental feelings of anxiety or overwhelm. The ‘Helping’ mode is characterised by empathic responses to the child’s needs, two-way dialogue with the child, and a greater tolerance for children’s emotional self-expression. It features less demand for the child to be quiet or still, and supports natural curiosity and exploration of the environment. Rather than imposing ‘good’ values through punishment or control, or by enforcing blind obedience, the ‘Helping’ parent fosters autonomy, self-regulation and creativity in the child by allowing the child’s individual will to develop. While the setting of firm boundaries remains important, we are learning to do so without resorting to humiliation, shaming, or violence against the child.

Far from the chaos that many feared might ensue, children of ‘Helping’ mode parents tend to be gentle and self-possessed rather than imitative or group-oriented, and are less intimidated by authority. Although this parenting style may initially consume more time and energy in children’s early years, they appear to develop more independence and self-responsibility later.

With the advent of the new child-rearing modes, conflict inevitably arises. We have relied on familiar methods, and change brings about anxiety and despair, insecurity, backlash and even anger. We are collectively just beginning to wean ourselves off our need to control and manipulate babies into docile and manageable packages, and so any suggestions of alternative methods based on trusting the rightness of infants’ expressions of need, continue to provoke anxiety and guilt.

As tired parents, when our baby’s cries meet with our despair and exhaustion, do we look to silencing the baby — do we decide that there is something wrong with the baby who cries at night? Or, instead, do we seek more support from our environment, replenishing ourselves so that we can meet our baby’s needs? This important question is answered by our steady move into the ‘Helping’ mode era. It makes more sense for us as parents to be surrounded by supportive friends, family and community, helping us to fulfil the enormous task of childrearing, than it does to behaviour-modify infants to fit more neatly into our harried lifestyles.

Principally, the supporting of parents is a societal responsibility. An inspiring example comes from Boulder, Colorado, where their Community Parenting Center co-ordinates volunteer assistance home visits to almost a third of all homes where new children are born, rich and poor alike. Since this parenting support service has been in place, (now funded by an additional tax/levy), the rate of injuries to children through abuse has dropped dramatically.

In the overall scheme of things, we keep evolving and, as we do, the lot of children keeps improving. It is exciting to note that improvements in childrearing practices are accelerating, propelled even faster by our current information revolution. However, for any progress to take place, it is important that we have the courage to acknowledge any of our own insufficiencies as parents — and those of our parents. Yet we can recognise that each successive generation has, on the whole, improved on the childrearing ways of the last.

A tenet central to the field of psychohistory is that the nature of world affairs is a product of the way we treat our children. It is no accident that, paralleling the progress made in childrearing, the Western world has accomplished unprecedented levels of democracy, welfare, gender equality, fairness in labour laws, and awareness of ecological issues. Though we remain a long way from a just, equitable and sustainable global society, the ever evolving childrearing improvements give us reason for hope.

Published in byronchild/ Kindred , issue 15, September 05

Parenting for a Peaceful World

Heart to Heart Parenting 

Regaining Sanity, Part 2: Coming Out of Isolation into a Community Style of Parenting

Breastfeeding Today — Challenging Fallacy with Fact

Babies Love Rhyming Time

Child Humiliation

Thirteen Ways to Enable Free Play and Other Independent Activities for Your Kids

Virtue and Vice, Individual and Cultural

[…] Let’s explore the progression of the predominant societal beliefs about caring for children. (To read about this in greater detail, visit) […]

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Proper Essay Example About Child Rearing

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Family , Children , Parents , Child , Parenting , Rearing , Parental , Style

Words: 1700

Published: 03/08/2023

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Introduction

Child rearing encompasses the diverse practices of parenting meant to instill different attitudes and behavior in children. John Locke proposed the idea that children are born devoid of any values and beliefs and that these are conveyed to them by the society which they are born into (Spera 125). Child rearing entails a process of transmitting skills, attitudes, and behaviors to the young to assist their integration into a cultural community (Spera 126). Parents are amongst the most influential agents of socialization that interact with children through the child rearing process. Child rearing practices include parental involvement in the child’s life, communication of parental goals, and future aspirations to the child, and parental styles which divide parents into three primary groups authoritative, permissive and authoritarian. According to Van Campen and Russell (1), prevalent notions of good parenting in the United States are those of stereotypically authoritative parenting. However, other cultures, such as Asians, practice different parenting styles that are equally effective. From the enculturation interview, the respondent was a married Caucasian woman around thirty years of age named Peyton; mother to a seven-year-old girl – Lilly. Child rearing is not an exact science, and different practices of parenting might produce similar effects. The techniques of child rearing are seemingly relevant as they affect the person a child grows up to become.

Child-Rearing Practices and Cross-Cultural Comparisons

Parental involvement is an essential element of the child rearing process. Caring for a child for the first six years after birth is especially important in this process as these are the formative years. The presence of both parents at birth, nursing the child for the recommended time, and positive interactions with a child from birth are important displays of affection. Parental involvement concerning schooling involves assisting the child with homework, being present at extracurricular activities like sports events, and presence at parent-teacher conferences (Hill and Taylor 163). Lower parental involvement and inclination towards harsh punishments are common amongst parents from disadvantaged backgrounds (Spera 140). Parents from low socio-economic backgrounds are faced with challenges, such as juggling jobs and might not have ample time to be involved in their children’s education (Hill and Taylor 164). The attention awarded to a child from birth helps them feel loved and builds their confidence. Peyton and her husband Ted were both excited about having their first child and upon her arrival, they were constantly involved in her life. When Lilly was born, her father was in the hospital room with about six relatives waiting outside; both her parents cared for her during infancy, even potty trained her and assisted her with her homework every day. According to Peyton, her worst fears regarding child rearing would be that she did not participate enough in her child’s life. Communicating parental goals and aspirations for one’s child is another way to for parents to socialize with their children (Spera 130). A 2004 U.S. Bureau of Census data suggested that the proportions of Caucasians who attain college degrees are higher than those of African-Americans and Hispanics. However, according to Spera (131), the three social groups consider education a valuable tool and their educational aspirations with regards to their children are comparable. It raises issues of socio-economic bias that may be the reason for fewer minorities attaining higher education. Numerous studies described in Spera’s (139) article found that parental socialization goals in the United States do not vary by ethnicity. Peyton expects that her child will continue to perform well and that Lilly will become a successful and respectable member of society possibly a lawyer like her father. The style of parenting employed by parents is essential in child rearing as it shapes a child’s behavior. Parenting styles fall into two major groups according to Spera (132), love-oriented and object-oriented. The love-oriented style involves using the maternal use of "warmth, praise, and emotional affection" while the object-oriented style concerned the use or withdrawal of physical objects like toys in response to the positive or negative behavior of the child (Spera, 132). From the interview with Peyton on her childrearing practices, it is evident that her parenting style is love-oriented rather than object-oriented. Peyton speaks very highly of her daughter Lilly; she described her as an exceptional child who was friendly to all, an attitude Peyton had cultivated in her since infancy. According to Peyton, her disappointment is enough punishment in case Lilly misbehaves. Such kind of approval from a parent makes it easier for most children to internalize the beliefs and values of their parents). In the American society, Caucasians practice the love-oriented parenting style while African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans are more drawn to the object-oriented parenting style. Parenting styles are unique to each parent, and some parents might practice styles believed to be unconventional of their culture. Three major types of parents exist based on their parenting typologies- authoritative, permissive, and authoritarian Parental types are essential as they determine the responsiveness of children to their parents’ ideals and beliefs. According to Spera (134), being authoritative involves illustrating support and affection to one’s child and exhibiting high levels of maturity. Authoritarian parents are strict, and the process of socialization with their children mainly involves demands for observance of rules, and there is little rationale given to these rules. Permissive parents are in most instances unconcerned and show little regard for their children’s actions (Hill and Taylor, 163). According to Spera (136), authoritative parenting is more common amongst Caucasians while Hispanics, African-Americans, and Asians are more inclined to the authoritarian style of parenting. Peyton is in the authoritative category; despite Lilly being young, her mother often talks to her about the importance of being self-sufficient. For instance, Lilly is supposed to assist her mother to clear the table every day after meals. When Lilly misbehaves, her mother talks as well as listens to her and attempts to rationalize the consequences of misconduct with her daughter.

Effects of Environment and Socio-economic Pressures of Child Rearing Habits

Socio-economic pressures affect the parenting style adopted by parents in different cultures as well as the level of involvement. A predisposition towards authoritarian or authoritative parenting, for instance, can be influenced by factors like socio-economic background, a number of parents in the household, and parental education (Spera, 137). Peyton is an authoritative parent; she is an old parent who is educated and married, and this could explain why she is not inclined to practice authoritarian parenting like her younger more disadvantaged counterparts in single-parent families. Authoritative parenting is considered more effective in instilling parental values into children. However, it would be impractical for uneducated parents to rationalize with their children about the benefits of education or even to help their child with their homework. Immigrant parents, such as Chinese and Filipino American parents, display their affection through instrumental support (Van Campen and Russell 2). By working hard to support their families and to afford education to their children, these parents are considered ‘good parents’ in their cultures, which is not the case for their white counterparts. Most Chinese American youth considers their parents as authority figures rather than companions as in Caucasian families (Van Campen and Russell 3).

Relevance of Child Rearing Practices in Adolescence and Adulthood

The most important function of the child rearing process is that of shaping rational and successful adults. The authoritative style characterized by high support and high control mostly common in Caucasian families allows young adults to cope better in tough circumstances as well as suffer low instances of depression and delinquency and perform well in school and work environments (Van Campen and Russell 1). However, the authoritarian parenting style works unexpectedly well for other ethnic groups, such as Asian and African Americans. Chinese children perform comparably well to their white counterparts (Van Campen and Russell, 1). According to Peyton, her child-rearing practices, such as her parenting style are mainly borrowed from those of her parents and her husband’s parents, and she observes these practices because she is proud of the person her parents raised her to be, and so is her husband.

The process of child rearing is an avenue for young members of a particular society to learn acceptable skills, modes of conduct, and attitudes as prescribed by their cultural communities. It allows them to be successfully integrated into the society. Important aspects of child-rearing practices include the type of parenting styles, parental goals and aspirations of their children, and parental involvement in children’s learning process. Caucasians favor the love-oriented parenting style which revolves around offering or withdrawing emotional affection and praise. Most minority groups, such as African-Americans favor the object-oriented parenting style, which is concerned with the provision or withdrawal of tangible objects such as toys. The level of parental involvement is another factor that varies with ethnicity. Caucasian parents spend considerably more time and effort on their children as compared to most of the minority groups in the United States. The disparity could be due to the different parenting styles or as a result of disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds of various minority groups. The two main parental typologies, authoritative and authoritarian, are typical of Caucasians and minorities respectively. They influence the responsiveness of the child to her parents’ values. The authoritative style is perceived as more effective in instilling values for Caucasians. However, other cultures seem to benefit comparably from alternative parenting styles. The most important factor in child rearing should be to focus on the adults being shaped by society during their formative years. There is no significant difference between adults of different child-rearing practices the variation like most adults from a different culture is based on their socio-economic background rather than how their parents raised them.

Works Cited

Hill, Nancy E and Lorraine C Taylor “Parent-School Involvement and Children’s Academic Achievement: Pragmatics and Issues” Current Directions in Psychological Science 13 (2004): 161-164. Print Spera, Christopher “A Review of the Relationship among Parenting Practices, Parenting Styles, and Adolescent School Achievement” Educational Psychology Review, 17. 2 (2005): 125-146. Van Campen, K S and Stephen T Russell “Cultural Differences in Parenting Practices: What Asian American Families can teach us” Francs McClelland Institute for Children, Youth, and Families Research Link, 2 (1): 1-4 Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona Press. 2010. Print

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Human Relations Area Files

Cultural information for education and research, a cross-cultural perspective on childhood.

What is a “normal” childhood? Childhood, child-rearing and care-giving are all areas of human development which are largely taken for granted from within a single culture. However, approaches to childhood and children vary greatly across countries and peoples around the world. Cross-cultural research using the eHRAF World Cultures and eHRAF Archaeology databases allows us to compare and contrast aspects of childhood between cultures.

Since the 1950s, cross-cultural researchers have studied cultural variation in the treatment of infants and children and have produced numerous publications on the possible causes and consequences of these variations. But the anthropology of childhood has recently gained more prominence in academia, perhaps aided by Professor David Lancy’s comparative books, The Anthropology of Childhood: Cherubs, Chattel, Changelings (2015), Anthropological Perspectives on Children as Helpers, Workers, Artisans, and Laborers (2017), and Raising Children: Surprising Insights from Other Cultures (2017). Using past and present examples from all regions of the world, in the first book, Lancy reveals alternate cultural notions of children who can be treated by parents and care-givers as innocent beings, annoying inconveniences, or commoditized possessions. The second book focuses on the importance of “helping” in early childhood that commonly transitions to work in middle childhood. The third book puts Western parenting into perspective by comparing parenting practices with those of other societies.

Lancy has captured parental fascination beyond academia by challenging much that is so familiar about childhood in Western society. As the author explains: “I’ve had some success at weakening the intellectual monopoly that western, middle class culture holds on ideas about child rearing and child development. A very thorough review of childhood—aided immeasurably by eHRAF— from the ethnographic archives has allowed me to offer a cross-cultural and distinctly different account of “normal” childhood.”

Normal or just WEIRD?

In so-called WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic) societies, the responsibility is largely placed on parents or parental figures to not only nurture their children, but also teach them and guide their intellectual and social development from as early on in the lifespan as possible – including attempts to influence the fetus in utero (Lancy 2010: 80). This proactive and instructive approach, which can involve singing to a baby in the womb and providing educational toys with parental guidance throughout childhood, contrasts sharply with the approach to child development found in most non-WEIRD societies.

Ethnographic examples from the eHRAF World Cultures database effectively illustrate some of the ways that culture influences childhood development. While Western parents may be more familiar with the cultural notion that child-rearing demands a hands-on approach from caregivers until the child is self-sufficient, other cultures might leave children to explore freely as a form of self-education. They may be left to “find their own way” from a much younger age than Westerners are accustomed to. Furthermore, a child’s personhood status may be acknowledged earlier or later on in the life-cycle in some societies compared with others.

Among the Igbo of Nigeria, for instance, Basden (1966: 65) finds that “from the age of about three years, the Ibo child is reckoned as sufficiently advanced to be left more or less to its own devices. It begins to consort freely with children of its own age or company (otu) and to take its share in work and play.”

How children are treated can depend on cultural factors that include subsistence type, economic activity, family or community structure, and residence patterns. In some societies, infants are protected and insulated by parents for long periods; while in others, independence and resilience are expected from a young age and children are rarely excluded from adult activity; rather, they are readily integrated into the domestic economy.

For the Semai, a hunter-gatherer people from Malaysia, parents do not programmatically teach their children specific life or work skills as this would be coercive and detrimental to the child:

“Semai emphatically deny that they teach their children.  A  man might say, “We don’t worry about our children.  We don’t mess with them.  They grow up here in the jungle like animals.  We look after ourselves, they look after themselves.” (Dentan 1978: 98). Children tag along after adults, especially parents or grandparents, imitating their activities in ways that shade imperceptibly into helping out. … When no adults are around, children often play at adult activities by themselves (Dentan 1978: 126-127).

Similarly, parents do not expect to safeguard children from all the potential dangers of day-to-day life Unlike members of WEIRD society, daily adult activities, like handling sharp tools, are not off-limits to children. For the San (hunter-gatherers) in Southern Africa:

The relationship between children and adults is easygoing and unselfconscious. Adults do not believe that children should keep to themselves: be seen but not heard. The organization of work, leisure, and living space is such that there is no reason for confining children or excluding them from certain activities. Everyone lives on the flat surface of the ground; hence there is no need to protect children from falls or from becoming entrapped behind doors. With the exception of spears and poisoned arrows, adult tools do not constitute a hazard to children. Those weapons are simply kept hanging in trees or wedged on top of a hut, safely out of reach. When the men are making spear and arrow points, they do not attempt to exclude children … from the area (Draper 1976: 205-6).

Naturally, hunger-gatherer parents need to be more cautious and restrictive outside the settlement, where their children likely face danger from predators and the harsh environment. The two above examples from hunter-gatherer societies show some common traits; namely that the type of subsistence and resulting structure of society along with close proximity to extended family and other community members enable “teaching” to happen communally. The lines between work and play as children learn and grow are not especially clear and child behavior is not always monitored or corrected.

In societies where the division of labor is more rigid, however, we might alternatively note that children are expected to do their full share of grown-up work as soon as it is possible for them to contribute.

In pastoralist Kurdish society in Iraq, Hansen (1961: 49) finds that children play a role in the differentiation of labor, with jobs specifically designated for them: “The woman who makes the tea has nothing to do with serving it, and never moves from her position behind the samovar… As a rule it is children’s work. From the time they are able to balance across the floor with a tea glass and saucer in the one hand they take part in this ceremony.”

Similarly, Tongan children grow up in a horticulturalist society where they “begin to practice tasks before they are expected to be capable of doing them. Toddlers try to sweep up leaves, cut the grass with a machete, or peel vegetables and are usually allowed to handle the tools required for such tasks” (Lee 1996: 160).

Young girl from the Maniq tribe in southern Thailand. The Maniq are one of the few hunter-gatherer groups in Southeast Asia.” photo credit: Khaled Hakami (Anthropologist, University of Vienna), September 2014.

Other parents may intervene in more focused ways to shape their children’s development. For example, Caughey (1977: 42) explains how Chuuk parents in Micronesia intend to foster desirable character traits in their children:

This concern is partially reflected in the earliest socialization techniques, such as administering magical medicines to infants. For example, one secret concoction known as “bravery medicine” (sáfeyen pwara) is supposed to help produce this trait in a child’s character. An elder whose grandson had been treated with such medicine observed proudly that the two year old child did not “laugh a lot like a woman”, liked to play with a huge machete, and did not flinch when the medical expert experimentally jabbed knives at his face.

The image of a small child waving a machete may be commonplace in many societies and yet may cause extreme discomfort for those living in WEIRD societies. This contrast reveals how very different notions of “normal” childhood exist throughout the world. What is normal, ordinary, or extreme varies from place to place and culture to culture. Cross-cultural research supported with rich ethnographic context like that found in eHRAF World Cultures database not only enables us to discover differences between cultures, but, equally importantly, to find commonalities that may hold true universally across human populations.

Basden, George T. 1966. Among the Ibos of Nigeria: an account of the curious and interesting habits, customs and beliefs of a little known African people by one who has for many years lived amongst them on close and intimate terms. London: Cass. eHRAF World Cultures Database http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=ff26-006 , accessed 05 Feb 2015.

Caughey, John. 1977. Fa’a’nakkar cultural values in a Micronesian society. Philadelphia: Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania. eHRAF World Cultures Database http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=or19-026 , accessed 05 Feb 2015.

Dentan, Robert K. 1978. “Notes on childhood in nonviolent context: the Semai case”, in Ashley Montagu, Learning non-aggression. New York: OUP. pp. 94-143. eHRAF World Cultures Database http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=an06-016 , accessed 05 Feb 2015.

Draper, Patricia. 1976. “Social and economic constraints on child life among the !Kung” in Richard B. Lee and Irven DeVore, Kalahari hunter-gatherers: studies of the !Kung San and their neighbors. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. pp. 199-217. eHRAF World Cultures Database http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=fx10-049 , accessed 05 Feb 2015.

Hansen, Henny H. 1961. The Kurdish woman’s life: field research in a Muslim society, Iraq. Kobenhavn: Nationalmuseet. eHRAF World Cultures Database http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=ma11-004 , accessed 07 Feb 2015.

Lancy, David. F. 2010. Learning ‘From Nobody’: The Limited Role of Teaching in Folk Models of Children’s Development.  Childhood in the Past  3: 79-106.

__2015. The Anthropology of Childhood: Cherubs, Chattel, Changelings. 2nd Ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

__ 2017. Anthropological Perspectives on Children as Helpers, Workers, Artisans, and Laborers. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.

__ 2017. Raising Children: Surprising Insights from Other Cultures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lee, Helen M. 1996. Becoming Tongan: an ethnography of childhood. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. eHRAF World Cultures Database http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=ou09-107 , accessed 06 Feb 2015.

Ember, C. and C. Cunnar. 2015. “Children’s Play and Work: The Relevance of Cross-Cultural Ethnographic Research for Archaeologists.” Childhood in the Past 8(2): 87-103. http://www.maneyonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/1758571615Z.00000000031