Didn't the New England Puritans have an expressed ideology supporting this
type of "abandonment"? My understanding is that they felt that the natural
parents would be too "tender" with their children and not discipline them
as often and as sternly as would be needed. Therefore, each child had to be
raised by others in order to learn to live a disciplined life.
Of course, the practice of sending your child off to work in another family
is also one that parents can use to form alliances with other families. So
the child is again an instrument of familial aspirations.
> But mainly the historical record shows
>children at 7 being sent into the homes of neighbors as servants,
>apprentices, etc. in exchange for the neighbors' children becoming servants
>to their parents. About the only reason I can think of for this common
>practice is simple rejection of your children. Also, as I put it in my
>section on abandonment in "The Evolution of Childrearing," (free copy upon
>request):
>
>"In addition to institutionalized abandonment, informal abandoning of young
>children to other people by teir parents occurred quite often right up to
>the nineteenth century. The parents gave every kind of rationalization for
>giving their children away:
mary jo powell
<[log in to unmask]>
Austin TX
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