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Study Guide for Mid-Term Exam
Honors Seminar: History of Childrearing
1. Basic Outline of the Exam: The exam will include 8 essay questions of which you
will have to answer 5. Please note that the essay questions have multiple related
questions imbedded in them.
2. The essay questions on the exam will come from the following list of topics and
issues:

You need to consider what you have learned about the challenges historians face
when trying to construct a history of childhood and children’s lives. First, what is
meant by drawing a distinction between studying a history of ideas about
childhood vs. a history of children’s lives? How are those two concepts different
and how might they interrelate? Second, what makes it hard to find out how
children actually lived in other historical periods? What kinds of “materials” are
used to understand children’s lives in the past and what are some of the problems
with those kinds of materials? In responding to this issue, you should consider
“materials” such as census data, court records, diaries, advice books, and artwork.
Again, what kinds of information are gleaned from these records, about what
cross-sections of the population, and what limits are there on each of these
materials as a source of information?

In Chapter 1 of Children and Childhood in Western Society Since 1500,
Cunningham provides a brief historiography of studies of childhood. First, what
is meant by this term? Second, make sure you can explain the highpoints of this
historiography, with a special emphasis on Aries’s original claims, the
“advancement” of Aries’s ideas in the 1970s (especially DeMause, Shorter, and
and Stone) and the reaction to those advancements in the 1980s (especially Linda
Pollack, Shahar, etc.). Make sure you are able to explain what is meant by the
“sentiment” emphasis in explaining the history of childhood versus a more
household economics or family strategy emphasis in explaining the history of
childhood. Also, make sure you understand the key difference between Aries and
his followers vs. Shahar and others in terms of viewing the history of childhood as
one of drastic change in sentiment vs. relative continuity in sentiment.

From Cunningham’s review, what were some of the dominant themes in the
treatment and attitudes towards children in Greco-Roman society? Make sure you
can explain such practices and terms as “infanticide/abandonment”, wet-nursing,
and patria potestas as Cunningham explains and discusses them. Also, be able to
discuss how these practices both provide evidence and perhaps do not provide
evidence for the idea that the Greco-Roman world had a very negative view of
children. What is Cunningham’s ultimate position on the attitudes towards
children in ancient Greece and Rome?
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
What was the early Christian “contribution” to the views of childhood in late
Roman society? In what ways did the Old and New Testament (especially the
Gospels of Jesus) perpetuate Greco-Roman attitudes towards children but also
advance and change those attitudes? (see especially Cunningham and
Wiedemann’s discussion of these issues).

What was the concept of Original Sin? Be able to explain the full Christian idea
of original sin as it was first introduced by St. Augustine. Make sure you
understand how this concept emerged from the dispute between St. Augustine and
Pelagius about the nature of children. Also, be able to discuss how St. Augustine
understood this concept and what kinds of “evidence” from his own life made him
believe in it.

According to Shahar’s book Childhood in the Middle Ages, what were medieval
attitudes towards procreation and towards children? Make sure you can explain
both the positive and negative sides of these attitudes. Moreover, what were
medieval approaches towards childrearing, according to this text? Be able to cite
at least 3-4 pieces of evidence to suggest that the medievalists did love and
cherish their children and that they developed an approach to childrearing that in
many ways was much more “forgiving” and “tender” than had been earlier
characterized by Aries’ and his followers and perhaps even more gentle than
parenting approaches that followed during the early modern period. Ultimately,
how would characterize children’s lives in the middle ages and what do you think
about the evidence used by Shahar?

What was fundamentally “new” in the approach to childrearing during the early
modern period, especially as evidenced in Renaissance Florence, in the writings
of Erasmus, and ultimately in the parenting practices and beliefs of 17th century
Protestants (not that all of those were the same but they did share some things in
common regarding the raising of children that was different from early time
points in Western history)? How might we explain the development of these
changing attitudes towards childrearing, especially by considering the larger
context of, first, the Renaissance, and second, the Protestant Reformation? That
is, how did these movements pave the way, intellectually, for this changing
attitude towards children?

Be able to discuss in some detail what life seemed to be like in early Protestant
families of the 17th century, especially as evidenced by the writings and artwork
of Protestants living in Holland, Germany, England, and North America. Much of
the evidence for this comes from excerpts cited in Chapter 3 of Cunningham’s
book and from artwork that I displayed in class, especially by Dutch masters.
What kinds of issues did protestants struggle with and how did they set up their
households to manage these struggles?

In what ways was John Locke both a “good” Protestant in his attitudes towards
childrearing while at the same time introducing something fundamentally new in
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the approach to childrearing, something more akin to 18th century Enlightenment
philosophy that he helped pave the way for? What was Locke’s fundamental goal
in raising children and how did he think that goal was best accomplished?

What was Rousseau’s belief about the notion of childhood “evilness”? Did he
believe that children were born evil (following the Original Sin concept) or did he
think they become evil through some process? If the latter, what was the process
by which children become “evil” and how could childrearing help prevent the
development of that evilness?

What was Rousseau’s philosophy and approach to education? What did he think
children were capable of and what did he think they were not capable of and how
did he structure his educational system around those ideas? In what ways, might
Rousseau be considered the “father” of modern developmental psychology?
What ideas did he contribute that have had a lasting impact on the way 20th
century social scientists (psychologists, sociologists, etc.) and educators approach
the development of children?

Describe both differences and similarities that you see in the writings of Locke
and Rousseau in terms of their attitudes towards childrearing and
recommendations on the raising of children. In what ways were their
philosophies fundamentally different and yet they often arrived a very similar
advice regarding the raising of children? What ideas of Locke was Rousseau
reacting to as he developed his own approach to childrearing?

Based on census data and demographic analyses presented by Cunningham in
chapter 4 of his book, what can we conclude about the relationship between
family life, economic pressures, and schooling for the mass population of poor
and working families during the early modern period (1500-1900)? More
specifically, how did economic forces help dictate the “choices” (if you can call
them that) made by families during this time period, around such issues as age of
marriage, number of children born, abandonment, wet-nursing, and school
attendance?