“Childhood Through the Ages” – Elin McCoy

Vocabulary to be aware of: Comte, maternal mortality, prematurity, infanticide, foundling

home, Renaissance, báila, Puritans, swaddled, maltreatment, sensory deprivation

1) Why were parents considered “cold and physically brutal” toward their children?
2) What was the maternal mortality rate for the Plymouth Colony?
3) List 6 (six) reasons for early childhood death.
4) What portion of the infant population was affected by infanticide in early America?
5) When did the trend of sending children off to wet nurses start to reverse? Why?
6) Why was swaddling used? What did it do to infants?
7) What did the beatings and maltreatment result in?
8) In the 17th century there was no such thing as “childhood” or “adolescence”. These
terms are generally a product of psychology in the late 19 th and 20th century.
Since children were expected to act like adults, what kinds of childhood experiences did
they miss out on?

“Childhood Through the Ages” – Elin McCoy

Vocabulary to be aware of: Comte, maternal mortality, prematurity, infanticide, foundling
home, Renaissance, báila, Puritans, swaddled, maltreatment, sensory deprivation

1) Why were parents considered “cold and physically brutal” toward their children?
2) What was the maternal mortality rate for the Plymouth Colony?
3) List 6 (six) reasons for early childhood death.
4) What portion of the infant population was affected by infanticide in early America?
5) When did the trend of sending children off to wet nurses start to reverse? Why?
6) Why was swaddling used? What did it do to infants?
7) What did the beatings and maltreatment result in?
8) In the 17th century there was no such thing as “childhood” or “adolescence”. These
terms are generally a product of psychology in the late 19 th and 20th century.
Since children were expected to act like adults, what kinds of childhood experiences did
they miss out on?