Forgotten Children
Parent-Child Relations from 1500 to 1900

Linda A. Pollock (Author)

9780521271332, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 24 November 1983

352 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 2.3 cm, 0.446 kg

'Linda Pollock's study of the history of parent-child relations, as inferred from contemporary diaries and autobiographies, started life as a doctoral thesis; and, most of the time, it shows. I mean that as a compliment: for the serious reader, her book has all the advantages of having had to meet the discipline of a carefully built structure, a literature search that extends far beyond her original sources (which are themselves considerable) and a critical appraisal of previous research in her area. The study also fulfils what some of us now additionally hope for in a doctoral thesis: that it should endeavour to entertain, enlighten, and stimulate the reader (whether serious or casual) into a new look at familiar ideas as well as new speculations. Dr Pollock is to be congratulated on an effort of scholarship which involved the reading of almost 500 published diaries and 'autobiographies' (some of the latter being very short. perhaps forming the introduction to a diary), as well as a sprinkling of unpublished manuscript diaries.' British Journal of Psychology

'The history of childhood is an area so full of errors, distortion and misinterpretation that I thought it vital, if progress were to be made, to supply a clear review of the information on childhood contained in such sources as diaries and autobiographies.' Dr Pollock's statement in her Preface will startle readers who have not questioned the validity of recent theories on the evolution of childhood and the treatment of children, theories which see a movement from a situation where the concept of childhood was almost absent, and children were cruelly treated, to our present western recognition that children are different and should be treated with love and affection. Linda examines this thesis particularly through the close and careful analysis of some hundreds of English and American primary sources. Through these sources, she has been able to reconstruct, probably for the first time, a genuine picture of childhood in the past, and it is a much more humane and optimistic picture than the current stereotype. Her book contains a mass of novel and original material on child-rearing practices and the relations of parents and children, and sets this in the wider framework of developmental psychology, socio-biology and social anthropology. Forgotten Children admirably fulfils the aim of its author. In the face of this scholarly and elegant account of the continuity of parental care, few will now be able to argue for dramatic transformations in the twentieth century.

Preface
Acknowledgements
1. Past children: a review of the literature on the history of childhood
2. The thesis re-examined: a criticism of the literature
3. Issues concerning evidence
4. Attitudes to children
5. Discipline and control
6. From birth to twelve
7. Summary and conclusions
Appendix
Bibliography and citation index.

Subject Areas: Child & developmental psychology [JMC]