Strange Parenting Etiquette From the Past
Being a parent has been a demanding job since the dawn of humanity. While modern-day parents have access to a plethora of parenting resources and tools across social media, blogs, and podcasts, well-meaning — if not entirely well-informed — figures have offered advice about child-rearing for centuries.
Parenting advice became more widespread throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, when perceptions about childhood began to shift toward the belief that children are entitled to dependence and innocence rather than hard work and responsibilities in their formative years. Most of the advice on taking care of infants and children was morally guided, versus scientifically, and as a result, such advice often sounds strange or even downright alarming by our contemporary standards.
From giving babies alcohol to smearing lard on their skin and denying snacks to older children, here is some of the strangest parenting etiquette from decades past.
A Spoonful of Opium Keeps the Tears Away
In an era before evidence-based medicine, parents often relied on dubious remedies to treat common childhood ailments. Substances such as Stickney and Poor’s Pure Paregoric syrup and Godfrey’s Cordial were commonly given to babies in the 19th century to relieve gas, soothe teething pain, and treat unexplained fussiness. The secret ingredients? Alcohol and opium.
Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup was also a popular treatment at the time. The syrup was advertised as a method of pacifying young children, helping with dental hygiene, and alleviating constipation, and it was said to be suitable for babies as young as newborns. While the vibrant marketing featured cheerful imagery of happy babies and mothers, the syrup, a concoction that included morphine and alcohol, resulted in the loss of thousands of children until it was denounced by the American Medical Association in the early 1900s.
These were far from the only bizarre remedies peddled before modern medicine. Many teething treatments contained mercury, even though administering them could result in “pink disease,” which caused discoloration of the skin, sensitivity to light, swelling of the hands and feet, and, in severe cases, neurological symptoms.
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Babies Should Be “Aired Out”
In 1894, alongside advice on bathing and diapering, Dr. Luther Emmett Holt introduced the concept of “airing” infants in his book The Care and Feeding of Children. Fresh air, he believed, would renew and purify the blood and was just as important as feeding.
Holt suggested babies be placed in cribs near an open window starting at 1 month old. Airing could take place in almost any temperature as long as the baby was dressed appropriately and the wind wasn’t blowing in their face. He even advocated for babies napping outside in their carriages, insisting that children who did this were stronger than indoor sleepers. “Appetite is improved, the digestion is better, the cheeks become red, and all signs of health are seen” after airing, according to Holt.
The practice of “airing” babies subsequently gained traction, and in the early 1900s, people even began placing babies in boxes on flat roofs. Baby cages also soon appeared as a way for city-dwelling parents to provide their babies with that all-important fresh air from the comfort of an enclosed frame suspended from a windowsill.
Oil and Salt Baths for Newborns
Babies are born with a substance known as vernix covering their skin, and while modern medicine suggests leaving it on to protect the delicate newborn skin, advice historically suggested removing it almost immediately by rubbing the baby in something greasy.
“As soon as the [umbilical] cord and the eyes have received the proper attention and the mother has been made comfortable, the baby is given its initial bath of oil,” William S. Sadler and Lena K. Sadler suggested in The Mother and Her Child. “This oil may be lard, olive oil, sweet oil, or liquid vaseline.” The oil was warmed before application and then wiped off with a soft cloth shortly after.
Following this initial oil-based bath, Pye Henry Chavasse suggested babies be bathed every morning and at least partially wiped down every evening. Once the baby reached 2 months of age, Chavasse recommended putting two handfuls of table salt in the baby’s bathwater, which he suggested would “brace and strengthen” the baby.
Toilet Training at 4 Months Old
Early toilet training was common in the past, with some manuals advising parents to start as soon as just 4 months old — which is, on average, roughly eight months before babies even start walking (and more than one year earlier than average contemporary toilet training recommendations).
This begs the question: Without being able to walk oneself to the toilet, how exactly did a baby learn to use one? According to the Sadlers’ The Mother and Her Child, it was up to the caretaker to bring the toilet to them. “Any mother, caretaker, or nurse … will observe the time carefully and will catch the child on nearly every occasion before an accident occurs,” the advice read. “The nurse or mother places [a] receptacle in her lap and holds the child gently and carefully upon it.”
With this method, babies were expected to be able to control their urination by the time they were 8 or 9 months old. By the age of 1, the Sadlers expected babies to be out of diapers entirely.
Don’t Show Affection
By the end of the 19th century, children were increasingly viewed as innocent and dependent beings instead of little adults, but it was still uncommon for them to receive much affection from their parents.
In the early 1900s, John B. Watson, an American psychologist known for his role in developing the field of behaviorism, stated that children should not receive “too much mother love.” He argued in 1928’s Psychological Care of Infant and Child that children should be greeted with a handshake in the morning, should not be allowed to sit in a parent’s lap, and should never be hugged or kissed, save for a peck on the forehead at bedtime.
Watson wasn’t alone in his hands-off approach to parenting. In the aforementioned guide The Care and Feeding of Children, Dr. Holt said rocking a baby was not recommended, calling it “a habit easily acquired, but hard to break, and a very useless” tactic for soothing a baby.
The Sadlers felt much the same, advising in The Mother and Her Child that the baby be handled as little as possible lest it become spoiled. “If we sow indulgence we shall reap anger, selfishness, irritability, ‘unbecomingness’ — the spoiled child,” the guide warned. “Turn [the baby] occasionally from side to side, feed it, change it, keep it warm, and let it alone.”
No Lunch, No Snacks
Not unlike the control they were meant to exert over physical affection and bodily functions, parents in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were advised to maintain complete authority over what their children ate. Meal schedules were firm and snacking was limited. “If he want anything to eat between breakfast and dinner let him have a piece of dry bread,” Chavasse wrote in 1868’s Advice to a Mother on the Management of Her Children. “If he have eaten very heartily at dinner, and, like Oliver Twist, ‘asks for more!’ give him, to satisfy his craving, a piece of dry bread. He will never eat more of that than will do him good.”
Similarly, Cassell’s Household Guide from 1869 told parents not to feed children between meals and to stick to a schedule, saying kids should not be “exposed to the sight of tempting food at unsuitable times.” To this day, experts still espouse the benefits of childhood routines and schedules — even if the guidelines around meal times and snacking habits are a far cry from the restrictive rules of the past.
