Child Development Through History

Reading Passage

A. In the 1660s, while there were few accurate statistics for child mortality in the preindustrial world, evidence suggests that as many as 30 percent of all children died before they were 14 days old. Few families remained intact. Most parents expected to bury some of their children and found it difficult to invest emotionally in such a fragile existence as a newborn. When the loss of a child was commonplace, parents often protected themselves from the emotional consequences by withholding deep attachment to the infant. How else can we explain mothers who call the infant “it,” who leave dying babies in gutters, or who mention the death of a child in the same paragraph as a reference to pickles?

B. One of the most important social changes to take place in the Western world in the 18th century was the movement from an agrarian economy to an industrial one. Increasingly, families left farms and small-town life and moved to cities where life was very different. Social supports that had previously existed in smaller communities disappeared, and problems of poverty, crime, sub‑standard housing, and disease increased. For the poorest children, childhood could be painfully short, as additional income was needed to help support the family and young children were forced into early employment. Children as young as seven might be required to work full‑time jobs, often under unpleasant and unhealthy circumstances, from factories to prostitution.

C. Over the course of the 1800s, the lives of children in the United States began to change drastically. Previously, children in both rural and urban families were expected to take part in the everyday labor of the home, as the bulk of manual work had to be completed there. With the technological advances of the mid‑1800s, coupled with the creation of a middle class and the redefinition of family roles, work and home became less synonymous over time. People began to buy their children toys and books to read. As the country slowly became more dependent upon machines for work, both in rural and in urban areas, it became less necessary for children to work inside the home.

D. Jean‑Jacques Rousseau lived during the era of the American and French Revolutions. His works condemned distinctions of wealth, property, and prestige. In the original state of nature, according to Rousseau, people were “noble savages,” innocent, free, and uncorrupted. Rousseau conveyed his educational philosophy through his famous 1762 novel Émile, which tells the story of a boy’s education from infancy to adulthood. He observed children and adolescents extensively and spoke of children’s individuality, but he based much of his developmental theory on observations made while writing the book and on the memories of his own childhood.

E. One of the best‑documented cases among the so‑called feral children concerned a young boy who was captured in a small town in the south of France in 1800, and who was later named Victor. The boy had been seen in the area for months before his final capture—pre‑pubescent, mute, and naked, perhaps 11 or 12 years old, foraging for food in the gardens of locals and sometimes accepting their direct offers of food. Eventually he was brought to Paris, where it was hoped that he would be able to answer some profound questions about the nature of humanity, but that hope was quashed very early.