Mary Hatfield
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- November 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198843429
- eISBN:
- 9780191879265
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198843429.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Social History
This chapter considers the medicalization of childhood from the late eighteenth century into the 1840s. What we might now term a ‘biological’ definition of childhood is seen first in late ...
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This chapter considers the medicalization of childhood from the late eighteenth century into the 1840s. What we might now term a ‘biological’ definition of childhood is seen first in late eighteenth-century medical intervention into the care of infants. These texts are part of a wider ‘rationalization’ of childhood which emerged in scientific and child-rearing genres. The influence in Ireland of John Locke, William Buchan, and the Edgeworths’ contributed to a reformulation of childhood as a period of enormous intellectual and physical malleability. As the matter of children’s health shifted from the female domain to the business of men, medical professionals defined the child body in opposition to the adult male body. Elite women were criticized for coddling their children excessively, while the lower classes were characterized as neglectful and uncaring. By the mid-nineteenth century, objective standards of growth were deployed as mechanisms for governing parental as much as childhood behaviour.Less
This chapter considers the medicalization of childhood from the late eighteenth century into the 1840s. What we might now term a ‘biological’ definition of childhood is seen first in late eighteenth-century medical intervention into the care of infants. These texts are part of a wider ‘rationalization’ of childhood which emerged in scientific and child-rearing genres. The influence in Ireland of John Locke, William Buchan, and the Edgeworths’ contributed to a reformulation of childhood as a period of enormous intellectual and physical malleability. As the matter of children’s health shifted from the female domain to the business of men, medical professionals defined the child body in opposition to the adult male body. Elite women were criticized for coddling their children excessively, while the lower classes were characterized as neglectful and uncaring. By the mid-nineteenth century, objective standards of growth were deployed as mechanisms for governing parental as much as childhood behaviour.
Elizabeth Lominska Johnson and Graham E. Johnson
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9789888455898
- eISBN:
- 9789882204331
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888455898.003.0006
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
Kwan Mun Hau, an original village and research focus, was re-sited in 1964, as the villagers could no longer tolerate the flooding in the old village resulting from unplanned development of ...
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Kwan Mun Hau, an original village and research focus, was re-sited in 1964, as the villagers could no longer tolerate the flooding in the old village resulting from unplanned development of surrounding areas, and government hopes to rationalize the development of the central area where the village had been located. This sealed the villagers’ move to a cash economy, a mixed benefit, with many employed in industry and some receiving rents from tenants of diverse origins, many of whom ran small factories. The lineage trusts were also converted to rent-yielding urban property. Families were still large, with many children, but their structures were limited by the configuration of the new houses. Interest in birth control was high. All children now went to school, studying in Cantonese, the lingua franca, which was also promoted by the increasing presence of television. Western medicine was readily available, but the very old were still cared for at home.Less
Kwan Mun Hau, an original village and research focus, was re-sited in 1964, as the villagers could no longer tolerate the flooding in the old village resulting from unplanned development of surrounding areas, and government hopes to rationalize the development of the central area where the village had been located. This sealed the villagers’ move to a cash economy, a mixed benefit, with many employed in industry and some receiving rents from tenants of diverse origins, many of whom ran small factories. The lineage trusts were also converted to rent-yielding urban property. Families were still large, with many children, but their structures were limited by the configuration of the new houses. Interest in birth control was high. All children now went to school, studying in Cantonese, the lingua franca, which was also promoted by the increasing presence of television. Western medicine was readily available, but the very old were still cared for at home.
