Child Rearing In Victorian Times

Child Rearing in Victorian Times

Childhood barely existed for most British children at the end of the

eighteenth century, since they began a lifetime of hard labour as soon as they

were capable of simple tasks. By contrast, the fortunate children of the

wealthy generally were spoiled and enjoyed special provisions for the need of a

lengthy childhood, yet who in a way may have endured the same pain of those who

were not as fortunate.

Child rearing in the Victorian times was not at all similar to child

rearing today. There were of course two different categories on how the child

was brought up. They went from one extreme to the other. They were the

difference of the classes. The life of an upper class child during the

Victorian era, was as one may put it, stuffy, conventional and routine, not to

mention quite lonely at certain times. Yet others argue Victorian children

should have been quite content, given the fact that they were treated to only

the best of toys, clothes and education and it was absurd to even consider the

child being neglected.

Mothers and Fathers were seen as special, glamourous guests, due to the

fact that they were never around and rarely seen by their children. This was

because child and parent led totally separate existences, they were only

summoned to appear before their parents at a certain set hour of the day. Many

Victorian children like Winston Churchill and Harriet Marden recall such cold

relations between their selves and their mothers that they would be able to

count how many times in their life they had been hugged. Family life was formal,

although during that time child rearing manuals urged bonding and maternal ties,

mothers remained cool and distant. Children were a convenience to their parents,

they obeyed them as they would an army officer. Sir Osbert Sitwell once argued,

Parents were aware that the child would be a nuisance and a whole bevy

of servants, in addition to the complex guardianship of nursery and school rooms

was necessary not so much to aid the infant as to screen him from his father or

mother, except on some occasions as he could be used by them as adjuncts, toys

or decorations.

Although this only describes a minority of parents it was always in the

best interests for the child not to be heard or in the way, it was rarely taken

to the extent of screening the child.

It was the era of nurses and nannies, the child was not raised by the

woman who gave birth to him, but by the hired help.