How do you think the past would have unfolded differently if our ancestors parented more like we do?

[hereidrawtheline]

I have wondered this for my whole life really! I read shedloads of history. Non-fiction and fiction. I actually dont read anything contemporary!

I know from my extensive experience of first hand memoirs, biographies etc that parents loved their children the same as we do now - for the most part. Many mothers and fathers I could name who I have read much about were utterly and totally in love with their children and suffered much hardship for them, just as I would for mine. So I am not taking away from that.

But nevertheless there were a lot more parents back then who schooled themselves to be distant. They were raised like that and they passed it on to their children. There are also countless examples of this. The Hanovarian Georges were famous for hating their heirs. I am reading the last book of the Wideacre series - fiction granted but well written and there are a lot of really shitty parents in it. Parents who were aristocrats who were happy to have their children raised by staff and see them at Christmas and never more, and parents who were paupers who would sell their children into slavery and then buy gin.

Now I hasten to add, I really am not ignorant!! I understand the circumstances that these people were in, and the level of education they had, compassion they had been shown when they were children, and opportunities available to them. So no one tell me to put my judgey pants away, and please re-read my second paragraph! Although certainly some parents past and present I would judge! Sometimes things are black and white. But that is a whole other thread and one I darent start...

I am hypothesising what the world would be like had more past parents been more like present parents. So... more modern levels of "normal" childcare. Lots of love and attention. Unconditional. Showing emotions. Not getting whipped for offences. Not being sold for a start. Instilling confidence and love and humour before fear and etiquette.

So would women's rights have come about sooner? Because women would have been seen sooner as individuals to be loved and valued and not used and sold? Would men be more in touch with their feelings and would rape and domestic violence be less prevalent now? Would medical science have advanced faster? Would poverty in parts of the world already be eradicated?

Or is the opposite the case? Did we need to go through an emotional dark age for some reason? Are we indeed still coming out of that dark age? Clearly the world is not "sorted" so we have a long way to go but I look at my son and I am grateful, even when he is driving me up the wall with fury, that he is mine, and that I have been able to love him as I do, and not pushed by society to fit me and him in a box I dont want us to be in.

I actually got to this question by contemplating child labour. Which of course is sadly still happening. I should say that although I know a fair amount of the history of the poor I know a hell of a lot of aristocratic history. Firstly because I find it fascinating, but also of course because more is written about it, for obvious reasons. So some of the questions posed above apply more to the rich than the poor but I thought I would open the conversation up anyway.

yes but the wetnurses were employees - they didnt stay forever. They werent called Mama. They might have been family retainers, if they were very lucky, or they might have never been seen again when the baby was weened.

The whole view of the poor was different though - your thinking of the kindness giving the tax releif to the poor. The porr were regarded as we regard criminals, it was there fault they were poor and they should be ashamed (take asking for more in the workhouse and how Dickens portraed being poor) you were worthless for being poor and no better than a criminal.

So the child that had more love may show compassion but not in the ways a modern person may show compassion as they have different socities that they are in and different moral codes. So what we think of as being compassion to give tax releif they may think better to abolish slavery, or bring in the factoy acts concerning children working. It would be relative to the surrondings?

have you read this?

I really enjoyed this one and if you havn't read it do have a look in the library for it - its great.

Although you never want to give birth again and it is grafic. I came to the conclusion it was better in this instance to be a pauper and give birth in the gutter than be upper class and have intervention at this time as it could be nasty

I know this is an old thread but it's such an interesting cognitive exercise. It didn't get many replies before. But I think it's a fascinating issue.

I think parents in the past were socially conditioned not to care as much about dcs. (Like the DFs now who abandon their dcs)

Childhood itself is a socially constructed concept (especially post puberty). It's a handy way of the patriarchy of keeping women chained to the domestic sphere and out of mens way.