CHILDHOOD IN HISTORY

  • CHILD SACRIFICE
    7000 BCE

    CHILD SACRIFICE

    It was practiced by the Irish Celts, the Gauls, the Scandinavians, the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the Moabites, the Ammonites, and, in certain periods, the Israelites. Many archeologists have found child bones from these activities in Jericho.
  • BABIES WERE TIED UP
    1230 BCE

    BABIES WERE TIED UP

    The belief that infants turned into evil beings is one of the reasons why they were tied up, or swaddled, so long and so tightly.
  • CHILDREN DURING ORGIES
    50

    CHILDREN DURING ORGIES

    It was pretty common to see children waiting on adults during orgy.
  • CHILD ABUSE
    75

    CHILD ABUSE

    Sexual use of children was everywhere. Growing up in Greece and Rome often included being used sexually by older men.
  • CIRCUMCISION
    100

    CIRCUMCISION

    Jews, Egyptians, Arabs, and others circumcised the foreskin of boys. The reasons given for this is the excision of passions, which bind the mind. It was believed that circumcision would help.
  • INFANTICIDE
    290

    INFANTICIDE

    The killing of legitimate children even by wealthy parents was so common that there was even a decrease of the population in several cities. Until the fourth century A.D., neither law nor public opinion found infanticide wrong in either Greece or Rome.
  • CHILDHOOD AND HOMOSEXUALITY
    400

    CHILDHOOD AND HOMOSEXUALITY

    Aristotle said homosexuality often becomes habitual in “those who are abused from childhood.”
  • CASTRATION
    420

    CASTRATION

    Intercourse with castrated children was often spoken of as being especially arousing, castrated boys were the favorites. Surgeons said they were often called upon to perform the surgery.
  • FIRST ASYLUM
    787

    FIRST ASYLUM

    Dateo of Milan founded the first asylum solely for abandoned infants. Other countries followed much the same pattern of evolution.
  • CHILD AS MOTHER'S LOVER
    900

    CHILD AS MOTHER'S LOVER

    In many pictures it was shown the wish of the child that they would be a lover who would passionately embrace the mother.
  • CHILD BEATING LAW
    1200

    CHILD BEATING LAW

    A child beating law was created in which was affirmed that parents should beat their children gently because they were also humans.
    "Are they not human? Are they not flesh and blood like you?”
  • SWADDLED CHILDREN
    1210

    SWADDLED CHILDREN

    It was common to se parents swaddling up their babies as swaddled infants are extremely passive, their hearts slow down, they cry less, they sleep far more
  • SCARY GHOST-LIKE FIGURES
    1400

    SCARY GHOST-LIKE FIGURES

    Mormo, Canida, Poine, Sybaris, Acco, Empusa, Gorgon, and Ephialtes were invented for childs to feel scared about staying up at night. These ghosts "ate" and scared children.
  • CHILDREN GIVEN TO THE DEVIL
    1400

    CHILDREN GIVEN TO THE DEVIL

    Bad parents use to give their children to the devil. This was common after some parents promised giving their children to him.
  • GRANDMOTHERS AND GRANDCHILDREN
    1511

    GRANDMOTHERS AND GRANDCHILDREN

    Grandmothers were supposed to masturbate their grandsons according to Hans Baldung Grien’s picture
    of Anna selbdritt shows
  • EXORCISMS FOR HYSTERICAL FITS
    1520

    EXORCISMS FOR HYSTERICAL FITS

    The frequent hysterical fits of children could often be cured by exorcising the Devil out of the children, as in this 1520 painting
    by Grunewald.
  • CHILDREN AS SERVANTS
    1558

    CHILDREN AS SERVANTS

    Children used to take care of adults in very concrete ways. Ever since Roman times, boys and girls waited on their parents at table, and in the Middle Ages all children except royalty acted as servants
  • CHILDREN PLAY WITH MASKS

    CHILDREN PLAY WITH MASKS

    Children used to be frightened by masks, and not only from adults but from other kids who would play with the masks.
  • BAPTISMS IN THE OLD ERA

    BAPTISMS IN THE OLD ERA

    Many people thought that "the new-born babe is full of the stains and pollution of sin, which it inherits from our first parents through our loins", as Richard Allestree said. Actually, the baptisms used to include exorcisms of the Devil.
  • JOHN LOCKE TABULA RASA

    JOHN LOCKE TABULA RASA

    In his brilliant 1689 work An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke argues that, at birth, the mind is a tabula rasa (a blank slate) that we fill with ‘ideas’ as we experience the world through the five senses.
  • SINFUL ACTIVITIES

    SINFUL ACTIVITIES

    Masturbation in adults was a minor sin, even tho in children it wasn't. Adult homosexuality, not masturbation, was the main obsession of premodern sexual regulation, actually.
  • CONTROL OF PISS

    CONTROL OF PISS

    The struggle between parent and child for control in infancy of urine and feces is an eighteenth-century invention. Children were given suppositories, enemas, and oral purges in sickness and in health.
  • INFANTICIDE WAS STILL COMMON

    INFANTICIDE WAS STILL COMMON

    By the eighteenth century, there was high incidence of infanticide in every country in Europe. As more foundling homes were opened in each country, babies poured in from all over, and the homes quickly ran out of room.
  • ABANDONED BABIES

    ABANDONED BABIES

    There were lot of dying babies lying in the gutters and rotting on the dung-heaps of London
  • SCARY NURSES

    SCARY NURSES

    Nurses used to scare infants with stories of raw-head and bloody-bones monsters who would eat them. Not only that, but a person with a costume would terrify them. Some children died.
  • SUBSTITUTES FOR BEATING

    SUBSTITUTES FOR BEATING

    As beatings began to decrease children left in the dark became quite popular. Children were put in “dark closets, where they were sometimes forgotten for hours.”
  • ABANDONING OF YOUNG CHILDREN

    ABANDONING OF YOUNG CHILDREN

    the informal abandoning of young children to other people by their parents occurred quite ofthen during this time. Children were given away for them to "learn to speak" or “to cure timidness”.
  • CHILD'S SLEEPING BELT

    CHILD'S SLEEPING BELT

    This was used to assure body remains straight while sleeping, one of dozens of restraint devices invented.
  • MIND CHANGE

    MIND CHANGE

    It was really common to threaten children with ghosts and devils, but this practice stopped being acceptable and people stopped using it. Still, in many villages it was common to see those situations.
  • ANTI MASTURBATION DEVICES

    ANTI MASTURBATION DEVICES

    Anti masturbation devices were created for people not to be able to do this sinful activity.
  • CHILDREN IN WALLS

    CHILDREN IN WALLS

    Sealing children in walls, foundations of buildings, and bridges to strengthen the structure was also common and it was still common in the almost 20th century Germany
  • PENIS RINGS

    PENIS RINGS

    Penis-Rings were created to put on boys at night in bed to prevent erections while sleeping.
  • Parent-child relation

    Parent-child relation

    Freud discovered that parent-child relation was important. St. Augustine’s also thought it was important, but since Freud childhood acquired a new dimension
  • CHILD LABOR

    CHILD LABOR

    In the early 1900s, children frequently worked in factories. Some children as young as 5 or 6 worked. Many children worked long shifts, sometimes up to 12 hours.
  • UN ASSEMBLY ABOUT CHILDREN RIGHTS

    UN ASSEMBLY ABOUT CHILDREN RIGHTS

    In 1959, the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, which defines children's rights to protection, education, health care, shelter, and good nutrition. Check this video out: https://youtu.be/TFMqTDIYI2U
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    UNCRC

    The UNCRC consists of 54 articles that set out children’s rights and how governments should work together to make them available to all children.
    All countries that sign up to the UNCRC are bound by international law to ensure it is implemented. This is monitored by the Committee on the Rights of the Child
  • CONTEMPORARY CHILDREN RIGHTS

    CONTEMPORARY CHILDREN RIGHTS

    As in 2022, the development of the rights of the child has been major, and there is a continuous implementation of new strategies to improve these rights.