Childhood for those in the lower classes was short. Once a child was old enough to perform a task valued by adults they were put to work.
A child is just an adult in need of training
Childhood in Victorian society was short and to some degree; did not exist after the first five years of life. Children were expected to labor and contribute to the overall financial security of the family unit.
Wealthy families and families, occupying the newly established middle, gave their children the opportunity to be children. Childhood for children in these classes focused on helping them gain the skills they would need to take their rightful place in society. Males of course would be groomed for leadership position similar to that of the father and women would be trained to be the Victorian ideal of moral standard bearer for the home.
The realities of social class no doubt framed the ways parents and children viewed their core relationship with their parents. In the upper class most of the everyday tasks of raising small children was relegated to a servant. In an upper class household this would mean a nanny . In a middle household usually this job fell to a young unmarried girl. She also did other household tasks. In the middle class household the mother was The)preoccupied with taking care of ill relatives or lying in with another child. Most women of means avoided breast feeding and employed wet nurses. This planned distance between mother and father had very interesting effects on the view of parents for many privileged Victorian children. They became the idealized adults for whom the child was expected to perform. Being seen and not heard was not a matter of banning childish chatter, it was assumed children had no view of the world apart from that the parent's said there was.
In upper class families the arrival home of the bread winner was considered an important event. All the household put his need foremost .
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Passing the muster in the nursery
Children were often presented to their parents at the end of the day. It was if the parents were inspecting their troops. Care givers were judged to be effective or not effective parental substitutes. A result of these rather stilted social interactions .for children a visit to the nursery by the parents or planed social interaction in the parlor made their parents seem to be mysterious and even glamorous. It is not that individual relationships of deep affection did not emerge in the relationship between upper class Victorians and their children at some point. It was delayed and meant to happen when the children were able to present themselves to parents as an individual .The purpose of the separation of parents from children was based on the fact that a larger part of a young Victorian preparation for adulthood was to learn to navigate a very strictly defined social world.
The upper class did value education for its young males. Society eventually assumed that girls needed an education to produce intellectually sound off spring .Typically , boy were sent off to school after a few years in the nurser, This separation meant, the visits with one parents, were aimed at showing what progress to being a proper adult had been accomplished. Young girls were in generally still educated at home .Having leave of the nursery would afford them more contact with their mothers who might teach them needle craft or play an instrument. The most important lesson was that women were the heart of the home. A well run home lead to a well run country. The hearth was the source of all civil life in Victorian society and upholding it was considered sacred.
Child labor was eventually deemed unacceptable. Stories of the deplorable conditions in factories , lead many Americans that the place of the child in society was in the classroom.
Source: Wikimedia
Death was common among the lower classes so there was a strong relationship with the church among parents who believed in infant baptism . Religion gave hope to families that lost many children before adulthood.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Learning the complex management of the social graces.
Mothers in upper class Victorian society had as their main goal for both their male and female children to learn proper social graces. They needed manage the social obligations. Matters of leaving calling cards, keeping the appropriate time of mourning, and even how to address the opposite sex in everyday conversation were skill that children from upper glass homes were expected to know. Girls came out in their early teens as a way of entering polite society. This was all necessary to assure that proper marriages occurred. These were unions that maintained both the boy and the girl’s social position. Marriage was not arranged, but most Victorian adolescents were only socially exposed to acceptable potential mates. Girls especially were at risk of losing any manner of financial support ;if they decided to venture outside the chosen social circle for a mate.
Childhood in rural or urban poor family was definitely short. In farming communities everyone worked except for the youngest infants and toddlers. If the mother toiled in the fields with the father, care of very young children may have fallen on a female sibling only a few years older than herr charges. In urban settings, children as young as eight were sent to work houses to many times do incredibly dangerous labor. The family unit was seen as a whole and every member as needed laborer for the family’s survival.
Of course sometimes lower middle class boys were trained in there trades. Their education would have consisted of indentured and apprentice positions, in the home of another family member or friend. Girls may have been ‘put out’ to help in another household if she was not needed at home. She may have been indentured to learni weaving or care of dairy herds. Many rural communities in the United States gave children in rural communities a basic education; during the months that work had slowed down on the farm.
This like the social events of the upper classes, served as an opportunity for young people of the opposite sex to meet. There was a great deal of more freedom in the lower classes for people to meet a future mate. Even in urban setting parents, especial immigrant parent wanted education for their children. Children might be expected to work an overnight at a factory, so that they could attend a public school or parochial one
Parochial schools played an invaluable role for the children of immigrant’s in the larger city. Usually the church had teaching nuns that could speak the native language of the ethnic area they were serving. The goal of assimilation was stressed in ethinic schools as well as enculturation the of youth to value individualism Many coming from Europe did not have a sense that they could move beyond their natural social lot.
Learning to be Adults and Americans
In mid century child labor became a hot button issue; as the public responded to the gross abuses of children in factories that were reported by the media. Laws were passed and society as a whole felt it better that young people attends school on a regular basis. This was also a way for the government state and federal to assimilate very diverse ethnic groups into the culture. Public schools became the great equalizers it was where a new sense of what it meant to be an American was forged to help create a distinct identity.
All classes of children had access to some recreational activities and time to be children, but compared to the long childhood of today, it was obvious that Victorians considered children to be blank little adults that it was their job to make into proper and productive citizens.
One has to note the role of religion in the process of child rearing. Baptism after birth was taken very seriously by Victorian parents. Infant mortally was high and many felt it was first and foremost that they claim their new souls for Christ. Sunday school movements aimed towards urban children by missionary groups were seen as a great boon to many urban immigrant parents. It was a chance for their children to not only is instilled with morals. The poor lived in a world where women prostituted themselves for bread. Schooling in, any form was a chance for immigrant children to become proficient in English. The success of Sunday school movements and the need for children to be able to read scripture was a main goal of education reform. Schooling was seen as universally beneficial for the country as a whole. Public schools allowed for children with restricted narrow cultural experiences to create new experiences that came to define the American character.
Go West Young Man
The American character was not wide open to interpretation. The protestant values of the colonial north were seen as the founding principals of the nation. After the civil war there was a belief that immigrants and newly freed slaves would only be not be nullified as a cultural and political threat; unless they found and took their proper place in society. A commitment to progressive Protestantism by the powers that be, knew that education was essential to this goal. It was not a matter of improving the lot of poor youth, the goal was as to convince them that their best interest were in taking on the role of worker. . Still with the West being always the way those who wanted to break out of life definition, there were still opportunities for young men and women to broaden their social horizons...
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