Bringing up Baby, Then and Now - Cathy Butler

Self-help books are not a modern phenomenon. They've always sold well, and reading examples from former centuries offers insights to any student of human nature. There’s no other genre that reveals more directly the anxieties, desires and beliefs of ordinary people. I imagine they must be a precious resource for historical novelists, in particular.

Especially fascinating to me are books on child-rearing. It’s very revealing to see how certain ideas about children change radically over time, while others stay more or less the same. Take this double-page spread from The School of Manners; or Rules for Children’s Behaviour, published in 1704. The book is addressed to children directly:

The idea of bowing to one’s parents, or of not sitting down until told to do so, may seem harsh today, but other items on the list are very recognizable, even if the language has changed. “Stop fiddling with yourself!” (3), “Don’t fidget!” (5), “Don’t bite your nails!” (10) – these cries are still to be heard up and down the land. Then there are the moments when the apparently familiar reveals itself in all its strangeness – as when children are advised that if they need to spit they should do it in the corner of the room and rub it into the floor with their foot (11).  I have a feeling we’re not in Acacia Avenue any more…

Leaping forward almost two centuries to 1878, let's dip into Don’ts for Mothers. (Yes, the guilt-tripping starts right on the title page!) It’s a similar story here. At times, I find myself nodding in vigorous agreement, as the anonymous author launches into some very sensible advice – by which I mean of course that it coincides with the received wisdom of 2013:

Don’t confine your daughter to fancy work and the piano. Mothers of England, let me entreat you, rescue your girls from the bondage of fashion and folly.

Don’t avoid the breast. The infant ought to be put to the breast soon after birth; the interest of both the mother and child demands it.

Don't fear the vaccination of your child. It is one of the greatest blessings ever conferred on mankind.

Don’t point out faults with an air of triumph or ridicule, so as to create irritation and dislike.

At other times our author warns against practices that it would never have occurred to me to consider:

Don’t attempt to harden a young child either by allowing him, in the wintertime, to be in a bedroom without a fire or by dipping him in cold water, or by keeping him with scant clothing on his bed.

Don’t feel it necessary to wash your infant’s head with brandy.

Don’t add either gin or oil of peppermint to the babe’s food. It is a murderous practice.

Then there’s this…

Don’t hold children’s parties. They are one of the great follies of the present age; where children are dressed up like grown-up women, stuck out in petticoats, and encouraged to eat rich cake and to drink wine, and to sit up late at night! Their pure minds will be blighted by it.

Though initially put off by the idea of banning children’s parties, on reading what they consisted of in 1878 I decided the author might have a point. Similarly, hygiene and the fear of passing on disease rather than chilly emotional distance lie behind the rule that "Infants ought never to be kissed except on the forehead, and even that should be seldom permitted." Context is important. Elsewhere, though, the rationale for Anon’s advice seems rather elusive…

Don’t neglect to be sure a child eats salt with his dinner. Let a mother see that this advice is followed, or evil consequences will inevitably follow.

Don’t allow your child luncheon. If he wants anything to eat between breakfast and dinner let him have a piece of dry bread.

Don’t allow the child to be with persons who stutter or have any extraordinary sort of ugliness. However great their merits in other respects they are unfit to have the care of children and should not be placed as attendants or instructors.

Of course I view the following with particular repugnance:

Don’t, on any account, allow him to sit any length of time at a table amusing himself with books, &c; let him be active and stirring. He ought to be tumbled and rolled about to make the blood bound merrily through the vessels.

Excuse me while I step outside for a moment to shudder at the memory of PE teachers past. Naturally I deplore any warning against books; on the other hand, if we substitute computer games, the sentiment doesn’t look antiquated after all.

One thing that doesn’t appear to change is the appetite for advice itself, or indeed the penchant for selling it in bite-sized chunks. Go to your local bookshop (or the internet) and you will have no difficulty in finding the modern equivalents of books such as these. And yes, there's little doubt that many of our own practices will seem bizarre, if not inhuman, to the readers of the future. If only we knew which ones…