Childhood: A Social History of Reaction Paper

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According to the author, this was of particular consequence as a contributing factor in the class conflict that led to revolution in the late 18th century. Apparently, reading itself was not held in as high regard as it is today and was seen as a crutch, much the way that contemporary mathematics teachers regard calculators. At that time, it was believed that genuinely educated people did not need to rely on writing to remember what they learned.

Part III -- The Family

The author also describes the extent to which the notions of both family and home differed tremendously from those concepts today. In contemporary Western societies, children are considered the most important core of the family and much of the family's resources and efforts revolve around meeting their needs and their desires. In medieval families, children typically left the family before the age of ten and were sent to work or to become apprentices; in many cases, they were sold off.

The medieval home was significantly different from the modern home and afforded almost no privacy for inhabitants, even (perhaps especially) for the wealthier classes by virtue of their reliance on servants in the home. The family was only very rarely alone in the home and even the physical layout and architecture of homes contributed to the comparative lack of privacy at home. Generally, rooms were not designated, let alone restricted for specific purposes or for the use of some family members rather than others. Even basic features hardly even considered as conveniences today, such as hallways, were largely nonexistent in medieval homes, requiring one to walk through rooms to get from one area of the home to another.

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Naturally, privacy was in extremely short supply within medieval family homes and this also contradicted some of the most basic psychological needs of children that are recognized today.

Conclusion

To put it quite simply, children were not particularly valued in medieval society, much less cherished, as they are in modern Western cultures. They very period of childhood was considered to last only until what would be considered late childhood or early adolescence by contemporary societies. In many cases, children were put to work or sent from the family home altogether by the time they were ten years old. Girls were typically wedded or sold off to be wedded by the time they were twelve or thirteen. All children were exposed to sexual language and play that would be considered criminal today, yet they were subjected to very strict sexual mores when they were considered to have reached adulthood at an age where they would be considered pre-teens today.

Education was rudimentary even for those in the more privileged classes who received academic instruction and even most of them learned to read only ancient "classical" languages. If reading instruction was rare, writing instruction was even less common. To a great extent, the lower classes were deliberately deprived of any educational opportunities to avoid reducing the demand on their part for positions entailing hard labor. Ultimately, the author presents a depressing picture of medieval and early modern life through his examination of childhood and family prior to the Renaissance age that reminds contemporary readers how fortunate they are to have been born in the 20th century instead of a few….....

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