I recently read an article that was clearly influenced by the latest notions about child abuse coming from the psychology profession. I remembered when I took Psych 101 in college and my professor said that one of the reasons the profession existed, a kind of manifesto, was to make the world a better place. Well, has it? Sometimes I think this profession is responsible for making just about everyone diagnose-able in some way and looking for more patients. I'm all for children being wanted and loved, and parents taking responsibility for raising them But the article railed against the latest notion of child abuse and that is "parentifiying" a child.
What this was explained to be, by this article, was children having to raise their siblings. Well, that is exactly how it worked in the past, when entire families had to work together also in the fields and many families had numerous children who had to help out in the house and yard and care for their siblings. We called them "farm families" but it was not just agricultural life that required big families. Many immigrant families, and families in which both parents needed to work, relied on family members to also work, especially in maintaining the household and the younger siblings. Ten children - sometimes more - were not unusual. Many of you are descended from families in which a mother had a child every couple years, had them in her own bed with a midwife, breast fed the babies, and the older children helped out as she went back to work cooking, cleaning, and doing the laundry.
It may be rare, but I've met people in their teens and early twenties who took responsibility for younger siblings when parents died. I've meet the teens who, being raised by single mothers, were the ones who were also caring for their parent who was terminally ill, while also going to high school. Someone had to step up to the plate, these people did, and I admired them for the courage and fortitude. (They're the kind of people worth hiring in the workplace too when their in home caregiving is done.)
In particular, back in the day, older sisters were helping bath, diaper, and feed babies, playing with them, and having their younger siblings tag along, watched out for them on the school yard, and in the process not only bonded with their siblings but learned the skills needed to be a mother themselves.
This was how "baby-sitting" otherwise known as child care was perceived, which is why as a teenager I and so many others were paid, but barely, so that a neighbor could go out for the evening or take care of business elsewhere.
I realize that child labor is usually defined as labor in which a child earned money - outside the home - and did not go to school. However, children, especially sons, often worked with their fathers and other members of their family in the trades, learning skills such as weaving, tailoring, and cobbling, and were only considered qualified to marry if they could, through apprenticeship and moving into the family business or a trade guild, support a family.
I've been doing the genealogy for a family that landed in the United States as German immigrants to Pennsylvania after the American Revolution and it is clear on the census that the children were all working by the time they were teens. They may have gone to the first three grades, maybe eight, and then it was time to work at a bakery or as a seamstress.
Children were considered to be adults earlier back in the day, or, as a friend called them "small adults." While I think teens today feel pressure to grow into adulthood too soon, I also see that parental expectations of their children is that they will not truly be released into adulthood until they are educated and have established careers. All of this would be considered the indulgence of the rich a hundred or more years ago.
Do you have an opinion?
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