Societal perceptions and lived experience: Infant feeding practices in premodern Japan.

OBJECTIVES: A change in how children were treated and valued occurred in premodern Japan, as popularized ideas of an inheritance-based family system led to more careful and affectionate child-rearing practices by lower social-status groups. A number of books were written, advising that breastfeeding should last approximately 3 years. The objective of this study is to reconstruct and compare breastfeeding and weaning practices before and after the transition, to illuminate the impact of documented changes in child-rearing practices on subadults' lived experience. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Carbon and nitrogen stable isotopic data were obtained from 40 subadult skeletons excavated from the Sakai Kango Toshi 871 (SKT871) site (late 17th-19th century, Osaka, Japan). Isotopic results from SKT871 were compared with previously reported results from the Hitotsubashi site (AD 1657-1683, Tokyo, Japan). Hitotsubashi and SKT871 represent urban populations of lower status before and after the transition of societal perception of subadults. RESULTS: The most probable age at the end of weaning reconstructed in SKT871 was 1.9 years (1.4-2.7 years with a 95% credible interval) and was lower than that in Hitotsubashi (2.1-4.1 years with a 95% credible interval). DISCUSSION: The age at the end of weaning became younger after the transition of societal perception toward subadults, and this younger weaning age is inconsistent with written recommendations for the duration of weaning in premodern Japan. It is possible that an increased need for inheritors under the inheritance-based family system led to earlier weaning and shorter inter-birth intervals, but authorities recommended an ideal practice of a longer breastfeeding period.

Up the years with the Bettersons: Gender and parent education in interwar America.

In the 1920s and 1930s, the parent education movement opened doors for many female psychologists and other child development professionals by providing training and jobs. Female experts in the parent education movement spread the emerging "gospel of child development" to other women-mothers-in a variety of formats. Although psychologists like John B. Watson advocated traditional definitions of motherhood focusing on role adjustment, there is evidence that women psychologists and parent educators introduced ways of thinking about family life that challenged tradition, encouraging role expansion and self-fulfillment. We explore examples provided by women at the Minnesota Institute of Child Welfare who produced radio programs on child rearing. Starting in 1932, advice about child rearing was embedded within stories featuring a fictional family, the Bettersons. The family narrative format provides an opportunity to identify implicit (and sometimes explicit) values and norms informing prescribed roles for mothers, fathers, and children. Analysis suggests that gender roles were shifting in more egalitarian directions, with an awareness of new identity options for both women and men. We explore implications for evaluating the impact of female experts involved in the parent education movement.

History of the child health and development book. Part 2: 1945-2000.

This is the second part of a historical review of the New Zealand child health and development record book (also known as the Well Child/Tamariki Ora Health book or Plunket book). It focuses on the years between 1945 and 2000. The first article highlighted how the book documented the development of "scientific mothering", which marginalized women-generated mothering knowledge. The present article highlights how during the reviewed time period women began to challenge notions of "scientific mothering", these changes are signaled in the content of the Well Child/Tamariki Ora Health book over time. In addition, women's movements, such as LaLeche league and Parent Centre, reflected significant societal changes during this era in relation to mothering and child-rearing practices, the influence of which had a significant impact on the Plunket book's development. However, tensions between health professionals and women in relation to the value placed on types of knowledge continued to exist as evidenced by the language employed in the Plunket books throughout the time period reviewed. Being mindful of the tensions that exist between competing discourses and knowledge sources is important as they call us to engage with how we value and develop our relationships with women and mothers as health care professionals.

[From traditional practices to medical supervision in maternity]. / De las prácticas tradicionales a la supervisión médica en el ejercicio de la maternidad. Asturias 1900-1931.

The first few decades of the 20th century represent a period of transition in attitudes to maternity and childcare. Attempts are made for mothers to interiorize new approaches established by the medical collective, still giving considerable weight to traditional childcare practices, using initiatives of different types for this purpose. Women take on these discourses but are able to readapt them in accordance with their situation and particular needs.

Help for all parents?: Child-rearing advice in English Canada in the 1960s and 1970s.

Changes occurring in Canadian society during the 1960s and 1970s were poorly reflected in the child-rearing advice directed to English-Canadian parents. Despite the rise in the number of women working outside the home and feminist calls for a more equitable division of child care, experts only sometimes modified their advice to acknowledge this reality. In addition, the creation of the welfare state seemed to encourage child-rearing advisors to ignore class disparities. Finally, experts in this period rarely acknowledged any racial diversity in the Canadian population, despite an increasingly multicultural society. They continued to presume as the norm a white, Anglo-Saxon, middle-class family in which mothers remained the primary caregivers.

[Children born to Hansen's disease patients in Amami-Oshima, Kagoshima, Japan].

In the Japanese leprosaria, it was very difficult or almost impossible for leprosy patients to give birth to their children. There were various reasons for this situation. Leprosy in the women mostly worsened in pregnancy and some of the children developed leprosy. Because of the chronic nature of the disease, marriage was encouraged in Japanese leprosaria, so that vasectomy was usually enforced in men who were wed, while artificial abortion was enforced in pregnant women. The only one exception was the situation of the Amami Wako-en Leprosarium. The Wako-en Leprosarium was started in 1943, and between 1946 and 1953, it was under American rule. Later it was transferred to Japanese rule. Religions such as Buddhism, Christianity and other religions greatly helped with leprosy patients, and in the Wakoen, it was Catholicism which prevailed. Catholic believer Joan Matsubara (later the secretary of Wako-en), Father Patrick Finn, Kaoru Ohira (director) outlined how children born to Hansen's disease patients would be grown up and made the internal rules of the couples' dormitory, while this was impossible in other leprosaria. Between 1953 and 1954, children were brought up by Matsubara's family or nurses. And since November 1954, children were brought up at nurseries (firstly named "Children's House" and later at "Naze Engel House" and children between 2 and 3 years went to "White Lily House". The children could meet their parents at times and now they are full-fledged grown-up citizens.

Childlessness predicts helping of nieces and nephews in United States, 1910.

The 'helpers at the nest' hypothesis suggests that individuals who are not currently reproducing often help kin by caretaking and thereby increase their inclusive fitness. Using a large scale historical dataset (Integrated Public Use Microdata Series sample of 1910; n=13,935), the hypothesis is tested that childless couples are more likely to fulfil such a role by taking care of a niece or nephew, but not a parent, than couples with children. Childless couples were significantly more likely to take care of a niece or nephew than couples with children. In contrast, couples with children and childless couples did not differ in caretaking of parents. Childless couples were also more likely to have more and younger nieces/nephews in their home than couples with children.

William Osler's "The Nervousness of American Women".

Almost a century ago, William Osler, the foremost physician of his time, was approached by a leading periodical to write a series of articles on the health of the American woman. Osler, then the Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford, wrote an essay dealing with the psychological stresses affecting the "new woman" of the early 20th century at varying stages of her development and the "nervousness" that ensued. The article was never published as a result of his belated reservations on the propriety of a professional writing for a lay journal. Osler's thinking frequently reflected the spirit of his Victorian-Edwardian era, although at times he demonstrated advanced and prescient ideas about sexuality, not often the subject of discussion, even in circumspect form, in contemporary nonprofessional literature.

The effect of maternal care on child survival: a demographic, genetic, and evolutionary perspective.

Models of population dynamics generally assume that child survival is independent of maternal survival. However, in humans, the death of a mother compromises her immature children's survival because children require postnatal care. A child's survival therefore depends on her mother's survival in years following her birth. Here, we provide a model incorporating this relationship and providing the number of children surviving until maturity achieved by females at each age. Using estimates of the effect that a mother's death has on her child's survival until maturity, we explore the effect of the model on population dynamics. Compared to a model that includes a uniform child survival probability, our model slightly raises the finite rate of increase lambda and modifies generation time and the stable age structure. We also provide estimates of selection on alleles that change the survival of females. Selection is higher at all adult ages in our model and remains significant after menopause (at ages for which the usual models predict neutrality of such alleles). Finally, the effect of secondary caregivers who compensate maternal care after the death of a mother is also emphasized. We show that allocare (as an alternative to maternal care) can have a major effect on population dynamics and is likely to have played an important role during human evolution.

Um projeto para estudar cientificamente a criança: Maria Lacerda de Moura e sua contribuição para a educação em Minas Gerais, 1908-1921 / A project for scientific study of children: Maria Lacerda de Moura and her contribution to education in Minas Gerais, 1908-1921

Resumo O artigo investiga o projeto de estudo científico da criança idealizado por Maria Lacerda de Moura entre 1908 e 1921. O recorte contempla a trajetória da professora na cidade de Barbacena, lugar em que pensou, escreveu e difundiu seus ideais sobre a psicologia experimental. Dentre as fontes mobilizadas, destacam-se o requerimento enviado pela professora à Secretaria do Interior do Estado de Minas Gerais, solicitando autorização para realizar experiências científicas nas escolas de Barbacena, e os pareceres gerados em resposta ao seu pedido. Além da identificação dos testes, também foi possível verificar a resistência do governo ao projeto, revelando diferentes relações de poder no contexto da inserção da psicologia experimental na educação.

Abstract This article investigates a scientific study of children conducted by Maria Lacerda de Moura from 1908 to 1921, and covers this educator's trajectory in the city of Barbacena, the site of her writing, scholarship, and dissemination of her ideas on experimental psychology. Important sources for this research were her request to the Minas Gerais state Department of the Interior for authorization to conduct scientific experiments in the schools in Barbacena, and the subsequent responses. While the tests were identified, government resistance to the project was also seen, revealing different power relationships within the context of how experimental psychology was inserted into education.

Psychiatry, bio-epistemes and the making of adolescence in southern Brazil.

Drawing on an ethnographic study in southern Brazil, this paper explores how therapists' attempts to "resist bioreductionist" pharmaceutical use both succeed and crumble. Using a comparative framing, I show that pharmaceuticalization can become an anesthetizing "lid" that interacts with young people's polarizing micro-politics and is an outgrowth of multi-generational medico-political family histories. This lid, however, is not air-tight and exceptionalities are born out of these very same histories. I argue that both pharmaceuticalization and exceptions to it emerge not through "resistance" to biopsychiatric logics but from the transformative possibilities that the patterned co-production of social, political, and psychiatric life affords.

Corporal punishment of children in England and the United States: current issues.

Proverbs has eight sets of instructions on beating children, but that book does not contain the often cited proverbial "spare the rod and spoil the child." This form of discipline, which is thousands of years old, has only recently been abandoned and forbidden in many states in the US, and in much of Europe. It is still legal in Britain and some US states, and remains a controversial issue.

[The Informatorium by Komenius and modern pediatrics]. / Komenského Informatorium a soucasná pediatrie.

The Informatorium "The School of Infancy" by Comenius is probably the first treatise on the development and training of infants and children in the family during the first six years of life. Although this year 360 years will elapse since its first edition, the ideas of this work are of topical interest and are inspiring even today. This applies e.g. to the prenatal development, the relationship between biological maturing and training, the necessity to avoid forceful pedantic control as well as excessive permissiveness, the necessity to supply adequate sensory and emotional stimuli at a very early age, the necessity to support all natural activities of the child while taking care of his safety, maturity and readiness for school, emphasis on fundamental values of life, etc. Comenius proved himself a sensitive psychologist who understood the specificity of thinking and sensations of children, long before developmental psychology was established as a science.

A fertile mother Russia: pronatalist propaganda in revolutionary Russia.

The Soviet consultation with its attendant propaganda, visiting nurses, and vacation homes attempted to set science and the doctor as the ultimate authority in matters of child rearing in place of old authorities, deny the contention that motherhood was a natural ability of women, and take over the father's place in the home. Soviet health care policy bridges pre- and postrevolutionary thought, blurred the boundaries between public and private, and mirrored international natalist policies. However, the application of these policies conformed to Soviet concepts of citizens' duties and state imperatives.