General Chat

Different times, different cultures. In modern times, different cultures still regard children differently. Some months ago I attended a lecture and slide show by a well-know doctor of medicine and author, who had been to drought-stricken N.Africa as apart of a team of aidworkers. She drew attention to the emaciated state of the children in comparison to the reasonably healthy-looking parents. She observed that in tribal areas the children fared less well as they were 'replaceable' and the parents tended to look after themselves first. len

I don't think most parents loved their children less, or worried about them less. There are many parents today who know that their child will probably die before them, but I doubt whether they would agree that that child is less loved or valued.

When i was a child everyone stopped and bowed there head and men took there hats off, and as a child i remember been made to stand still, not understanding why iasked my gran she said never under any cercomstances(spelling) do you move when a funeral passes. So my thoughts were all over the place then thinking something terrable was going to happen to me if i moved.

It just seems very odd to me to use the name of a dead child for the next born , i soppose there are two ways of looking at it, my first thought was the dead child is being replaced, but as some have said it could also be seen as a sighn of respect for the dead child. Gill

Another interesting point is that nowadays when someone dies, we tend to have a service of remembrance and thanks, and people don't always wear black. In Victorian times people went into full mourning for a prescribed period, then half-mourning. If they could afford it, they had a big funeral, black horses with black plumes, etc. Very elaborate coffins and memorial stones etc. My father was born in 1917 and he says in London when he was a boy, if a coffin passed down the street, all the men would take their hats off and everyone would stand still until it had passed. He was shocked at my uncle's funeral in 1983 to see that some men there weren't wearing black ties. Maybe the Victorian way was to give full vent to their grief and make a public statement about it - black-edged envelopes to inform relatives about the death etc., and we now think, despite all this being in touch with our feelings/counselling/coming to terms with it - that we should somehow bounce back and carry on as normal. nell nell

A good question. I think our ancestors had a very different view of death to the one current today. They really did view it as part of life, whereas we have to be reminded of this.

I do believe that the area or district they lived made a big differance most of my family lived in and around the potteries in Stoke on Trent thick black smoke from the kilnes filled the air all the time even in my liftime i can remember it. Those families lost many children, but a quarter of them lived in a small village out side and they didn't seem to loose any.Gill

Well, the infant mortality rate was higher in some places than others. My Norfolk gt grandma had 10 children, only one died, at the age of 10, from menigitis. They named the next born son after him. I think as well as passing on family names, it was sometimes a way of remembering the dead child. My Gloucestershire gt grandma had 8 children who all survived, except the eldest daughter who was knocked down by a runaway horse and cart at the age of 11. My London gt grandma had 9 pregnancies (so I'm told). She had 5 live births and of these 3 grew into adulthood. My Surrey gt grandma had only one child and died of TB. I don't think life was necessarily valued any less - I read Margaret Forster's book about the Carr family who founded the biscuit factory in Carlisle. One of the women lost 2 children to diphtheria and was heartbroken. Of course without written testimony it is hard to tell how affected people were. I do know that my mum recalled hearing that years ago the first thing a family did when another baby was born was take out insurance so they could afford a decent coffin if the child died. It's also true that in Victorian times there were more believers, who would have been comforted by the thought that their dead children would be in heaven. nell

Gillian - I think you're probably right. I'm sure they loved their children just as we love ours today (or most of us), but I guess there must have been 'Realism' about the likelyhood of a child dying? Kaye x

I think what iam trying to say is the infant mortality rate was so high i wondered if they some how had to do what they had to do for the child but distance themselves alittle. I remember something my dad said to me once. When he was born he was a sickly baby and remained so for a few years and he said one of his first memories was hearing an aunt talking to his mum and she said (i wouldn't spend much money on him he m ight not make it) and they wern't joking. G It sounds like a musichall joke doesn't it

It's an interesting question and one I've wondered about myself. I know that it's very common to find Siblings with the same names in families back in the Victorian Era, this mist be partly because infant mortality rates were so high and a huge percentage didn't make it past the age of 5. There seem to have been 'Family' names that were passed on through the generations and I assume that they gave more than one child a particular name, because it was likely that only one would survive to pass the name on? I'm sure that most Parents felt very strongly about their children, but they must have been very aware that a number of their children wouldn't survive so maybe there was a degree of detachment (for want of a better word)? Kaye x

Well it depends what you mean by 'valued there children in the same way that we do'. Personally I don't think people change very much. Some parents are loving and others are abusive. Some mothers then would no doubt have not had so many children if they had access to reliable, cheap and socially acceptable birth control. There were lots of cases of illegal abortions/children abandoned at birth/baby farms, but then more unwanted children were born then. Now there are more abortions and I know of many women who have chosen to remain childless. This is a luxury they wouldn't have had 100 years ago. nell

That the victorians and Edwardians valued there children in the same way that we do.(well most people) or do you think that the working class had so many, lost so many, and had to work so hard that they viewed them differantly. Gill