Puritan Family Dynamics

Throughout time, family dynamics continually adapt to fit an always changing society. Using the sociological imagination, I can analyze my family’s history to understand the shift between Puritan farming life to the Industrial Era to the modern-day family I live in now. During the Puritan Era, the family was much different than families today. The families were large which was important during this time, so that there could be as many farm hands as possible. In “The Godly Family in New England and its Transformation” Mintz and Kellogg state that a majority of women often deliver more than six children during their life (12). This is reflected in the interview with my grandmother. In our interview, she stated that her grandfather’s parents

Farming was no longer a way for many people to make a living as the land passed down continued to decrease. According to Katz, Doucet, and Stern, the turn of the Puritan Era consisted of five main changes within the family: the separation of home and work, increased nuclearity of families, decline in number of children, children living with their parents longer, and spouses living together longer even after children leave (qtd. in Coontz 51). From my interview, I found these changes to be true. By the time my great-grandparents had my grandmother, many of these changes were already visible. My great-grandparents were able to own their own hotel in Mississippi. Although they lived in the hotel, they had a clear separation of home life and work life. My grandmother and her brother were rarely asked to help around the hotel. With many employees, my great-grandparents were able to manage the hotel without too much effort. This allowed my great-grandparents to spend a lot of time with their two children. During this time, it was just the four of them, living in their place in the hotel. Unlike, my great-great-great-grandparents who had ten children, the visible decrease in the number of children was seen as it was just my grandmother and her brother. My grandmother, as reflected in Katz, Doucet, and Stern five changes theory, lived at home with her parents longer than most

In “Rods to Reasoning” Hays states that during the Middle Ages in Europe, if children were not “being fed, drugged, whipped, or tossed, they were often simple ignored (23). This was hardly the case in Industrial America. The view on children was changed from economically useful to emotionally priceless (Hays 32). When my grandmother and her family moved into the hotel, she believed she was fortunate enough to have the best childhood. She was seldom asked to help around the hotel and would often ask if there was anything she could do to help. Unlike the Puritan children who wanted to obey and please their parents so that they would be in good standing with their father to inherit land, children of the Industrial Era wanted to just please their parents to show their love and gratitude (Hays 31). Due to the new focus on childhood, a lot of literature about how to raise and treat a child was being published around this time. Rousseau declared that children would thrive when they were “treated with love and affection, and protected from the corruption of the larger society,” (qtd. in Hays 26). Protecting children from society and maintaining their innocence differed drastically from the Puritans who believed they had to break their children of their sinful nature (Hays 32). Growing up as my grandmother did, she passed down certain teachings and values to her children