A: No. And if I can’t say “ass milk,” you can’t keep referring to “drunk babies.” Just because a parent administers medicinal alcohol to her child doesn’t mean “drunk babies.” In fact, your job as a parent is to control the child’s consumption, giving the child just enough liquor to ease their suffering without making a drunkard out of them. You can see how easily a child might fall to drunkenness, considering what their other beverage options are. It is a dangerous balance a parent must master.
Q: But they can suckle donkeys, and have all the cow-gut drippings and cyanide they want?
A: Correct. I can guarantee you those beverages will never be overindulged in. And perhaps a little cyanide builds character? Have you considered that? Character so desperately lacking in today’s youth?
Q: When is it appropriate to give my child alcohol, and what kind shall they drink?
A: As we have seen, Barker is violently against instilling alcoholism in children through the use of it in medication. He is right to be wary; whiskey was the secret ingredient in so many patent medicines. But even he allows some instances where alcoholic beverages can improve a child’s health. Such as the following:
By the age of ten, children should be able to discern a good sherry. For medicinal use, naturally.
Measles: “Wine and water, or weak brandy and water, should be given at intervals, to rally the flagging powers.”
Poor appetite: “Pure, light, properly-brewed, honest, well hopped beer, which—a wineglassful or so—in cases of flagging appetite, may be sipped during dinner, and so taken, will create a zest for food that would probably not otherwise be cared for.”
Glandular enlargement (the doctor does not specify which glands respond best to this treatment, so we may assume it applies to all of them, from prostate to pancreas to pituitary): Mix “five to ten grains of chlorate of potash, or the same of carbonate of soda in a wine-glassful of beer or milk, three times a day.”
Common cold: “Gargle often with tepid port wine.”
Fainting spells: “Half-a-glass or so of genuine port wine, with a dry unsweetened biscuit twice or thrice a day, as for luncheon, and again an hour before tea, is often useful; a wineglassful of light, mild, pure bitter ale should also be sipped during dinner.”
Rickets: “A teaspoonful of steel wine [wine that had been mineral-fortified by soaking pieces of steel in it for a few weeks] three times daily, and double this quantity of freshly-made lime-water.”
In cases of extreme illness: “Strong beef-tea, wine, brandy, cream, the contents of an egg, can be so administered, and life thus sustained.”
Q: So… only give a child alcohol if… you’ve got a child and some alcohol.
“DANCE, RUMMY!”
A: Medical options were fewer then, you know. Any substance that produced a nondeadly effect could be considered medicine. Which is why Barker also recommended various internal uses of alcohol for ringworm, epilepsy, scarlet fever, whooping cough, and straining while pooping.
Q: What if my child rejects alcoholism and instead copes with the discomforts of life by eating too much? Is this a problem?
A: Rarely, in this century. Obesity was not the scourge of childhood back then like it is today. Food wasn’t as easily available, and when it was, it was usually gross. An obese child was rare, sometimes to the point of being carnival-worthy. And there were many of the opinion that a fat child was a happy child. Like Pye Henry Chavasse, who in his 1872 compilation of rants about the trouble with kids these days, Aphorisms on the Mental Culture and Training of a Child, explains,
Ruby Westwood and her brother Wilfred were known as the New Zealand Giants, and toured with their family as medical curiosities (weight, 242 pounds at age thirteen).
Why fat children are jolly—the reason being that laughing is good for the digestion; hence people who laugh become fat; while, on the other hand, grieving is bad for the digestion; hence persons who grieve become thin. A laughing child is usually a fat child, while a cross child is generally a thin child—such [a] one as the latter is said to cry all the flesh off his bones!
But Chavasse is speaking of a charming plumpness. Gluttony is a sin no matter what the century. In 1854’s Flowers for Children, Lydia Maria Francis Child tells the story of Little Laura: “If her brother comes and pulls one of her curls, just for fun, she stamps her foot, and says, ‘Get away, Tom.’ This is because she has eaten too much.”
And here we see the true danger: overeating lowers a girl’s tolerance for having her hair yanked. Gawd, Laura. Can’t you take a joke? If you didn’t want your curls sproinged, maybe you shouldn’t let them bounce around for anyone to grab?
That hair is begging to be pulled. Laura was asking for it, flaunting her curls like that. Tsk-tsk.
Laura isn’t the only storybook glutton suffering for her lack of self-control. Witness Mary the Little Glutton from Dr. Henry (Heinrich) Hoffmann’s Slovenly Betsy storybook. She was always stuffing her face with food. Then one day she had to contend with those who desired sweets even more than she did.
Bees try to eat her sweet face. That’s called “irony,” Mary.
Q: So… for a healthy child, feed them bland overcooked starches, lots of booze, a sprinkling of poisons, and no frenzy-inducing fruit. That about right?
A: And ass m—
Q: Yes, of course. And ass milk.
A: This is a safe dietary outline for nineteenth-century children, yes. Partly because Victorians were suspicious of anything that caused primal pleasure, like sugary or spicy food. But mostly for practical reasons. Preservation was unreliable, spoilage a given, farming methods temperamental, vermin and bacteria abundant. These constraints made many of the healthy foods of today unavailable or unpredictably dangerous. Inexpensive plain foods, inadvertently made safe through alcohol or boiling, were the smartest choices to feed a child. And if they didn’t like it, well, in the next chapter we explore ways of dealing with a truculent child.
With fright she shrieks, and tries to run,
But ah! ’tis all in vain;
Upon her light the angry bees,
And make her writhe with pain.
5
A Study of Technique Regarding Spanking, Birching, Caning, and Whipping
A Complete Guide to Disciplining Your Child
“Stop this at once, you heartless cow! I say, does the queen know of this injustice?”
Children enter this world evil. It’s all they know. They have no concept of right or wrong, and their selfishness is boundless, making all babies, in practice, sociopaths.
Q: You’re a big hit at Mommy and Me playgroups, aren’t you?
A: I would have been in the Victorian age! When it was common knowledge that your child is imbued with what religious leaders call Original Sin. And it’s your job as a parent to tidy up the moral mess you gave birth to. This means discipline. Punishment, guidance, restriction, punishment, heartfelt talks, life lessons, and punishment. Administer these steadfastly, and your child will not only grow a soul, but become a strong and pious bastion of self-control and laudable table manners.
Q: I don’t believe in “Original Sin.” Babies are born innocent. Are baby birds sinners because they selfishly chirp for food when they’re hatched?
A: Birds have no souls. That’s why we eat them. John Wesley, a founder of the Methodist Church, wrote sermons studied even today to illustrate the inherent wickedness of children, citing not only Scripture but how you can tell just by looking at the little weasels.
In his highly influential sermon “The Doctrine of Original Sin,” Wesley reminds parents, “[The sins of babies] begin when they first show wrong tempers: such as plain, undeniable forwardness, revenge, self-will, which is as soon as they have any exercise of reason.”
You know you’ve seen this. The face that reddens and crinkles in rage at the broccoli you set on his high chair tray. He doesn’t care about the effort you made, surrounding the organic steamed vegetables with tiny plastic hippos and giraffes, giv
ing unique voices and personality foibles to each toy, then creating an entire storyboarded adventure in which they (and your child) eat the invading tree aliens and save Planet Applesauce.
“The Alphabet,” from The New England Primer, one of America’s earliest schoolbooks, gets straight to the point. (“In Adam’s fall we sinned all…”)
You will get no appreciation, Mother, for this child knows neither gratitude nor benevolence. He will throw the fruits and veggies of your labor down to join the matted filth of your carpet, and he will maintain direct eye contact with you while he does it. That little hobgoblin knows precisely what he’s doing.
Today it’s broccoli he’s smashing into the ground. Unless he is disciplined firmly, tomorrow it will be the faces of children taking too long at the water fountain. Until one day the only recipients of his defiance will be the prison guards escorting him in and out of the courtroom.
Q: Wait. I know this one. If we’re getting biblical, it’s “spare the rod, spoil the child,” right?
A: Absolutely. We learn this from the anonymous “A Mother,” who wrote A Few Suggestions to Mothers on the Management of Their Children in 1884. First, the Bible makes it clear that beating kids with a stick is essential to a healthy childhood.
“In the Bible,” she writes, “the proper correction of children is not only mentioned, but is even insisted upon as one of the duties of parents to their children.”
The proof is recorded in the Book of Proverbs:
Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.
Withhold not correction from the child; for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.
Q: So… I am to… beat the love of Jesus into my child?
A: Jesus only ever beat money-changers, and they had it coming. He was notably gentle with children, even advising grown-ups to act more like them. No, biblical child-discipline advice tends to come to us from the Old Testament, specifically the proverbs of King Solomon. Back then God was a great deal more… smitey.
There were a few fringe arguments, bordering on blasphemy, against the biblical edict of corporal punishment in Victorian times, like that which comes to us from a 1900 edition of the periodical Humane Review. The writer, Honnor Morten, who was not only a woman, but unmarried and childless—and a smoker—opened her article with a quote from the godless Nietzsche. So, we take her observations as we would those of any mildly deranged person with a frustrated uterus and disgusting personal habits. Also, she indulged that smarmy penchant some people have of reading the rest of our favorite childhood Bible stories, like a killjoy Paul Harvey.
She points out that though the “spare the rod” decree is in the Bible, and made by the wise King Solomon, “Solomon’s sons were not such a success that we should strive to bring up our children on his methods if we thought about it at all. Besides, Solomon says we are to beat our servants till their sides bleed: we have given over beating our servants—is it not about time we gave over beating our sons?” I would like to mention that it’s probably not coincidence that as beating servants became unpopular, the refrain of “It’s so hard to find good help!” rose among the gentry.
Jesus knew a thing or two about comforting children with strict parents.
Furthermore, there is no way to tell what sort of men Solomon’s sons became. He had by most accounts seven hundred wives and a spare three hundred concubines. But the author was likely referring to the son who succeeded Solomon as king of Israel, Rehoboam.
Rehoboam certainly believed in tough love. And yes, his reign was rather troubled. His subjects asked him for kinder treatment than they’d suffered under Solomon. Rehoboam, who’d been raised and likely liberally beaten by the wisest man in history, told the people of Israel that he would be even crueler than his father.
He declared, “My little finger shall be thicker than my father’s loins. And now whereas my father did lade you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke: my father hath chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.”
Q: “My little finger is thicker than my father’s lo—?”
A: There are many ways to interpret that line. Hips. Probably meant hips. Doesn’t matter. The point is, Rehoboam wasn’t a terribly successful king. People started worshipping random gods instead of the one he told them to, there were enough wandering cults of male prostitutes to warrant mention, then some civil war… It wasn’t a terribly successful reign.
Rehoboam invites his subjects to suck his mighty pinky and eat scorpions if they don’t like the harsh way his father taught him to rule.
Q: Sounds like “spare the rod and scorpions, save your entire kingdom.”
A: No, it sounds like one particular son made God mad by bragging about his Power Pinky and suffered duly.
Q: Okay. Despite this, most experts thought beating was the right approach to child discipline?
A: First, I’ve never met anyone who didn’t consider themselves an expert on childcare.
Second, yes, even the most gentle-minded of those who wrote books on how to raise up children believed in corporal punishment, though they wanted it done with control and compassion.
In 1835’s The Father’s Book, or Suggestions for the Government and Instruction of Young Children, on Principles Appropriate to a Christian Country, Theodore Dwight advocates practicing “safe” forms of child-beating. If you beat a child all the time, Dwight warns, you will “deaden those feelings which should be fostered.” The punishment itself “should produce short but real pain,” and certain weapons and targeted areas of the body are preferable. “A blow with the hand upon a child’s head,” for example, “may stupefy without stinging and may produce lasting injury. The bones are tender and small, and a light rod is safer than the hand.”
“A Mother” agrees that head-shots are ill-advised but feels the era’s popular “thwack on the hand with a ruler” wasn’t much better.
“The habit of giving a child a slap and a shake for a fault is not only injudicious,” she tells us, “but is seldom attended with a good result. Boxing children’s ears and striking the hands hard are also unwise punishments, and are sometimes attended with unlooked-for and even serious consequences. The ears especially, being a delicate part of the body, should not be struck.”
Rather, “Mother” directs us to Nature’s Own Naughty Seat, roundly padded with cushion and holding none of those tiny bones that seem so eager to snap. She even weighs in on the most pleasant spanking accoutrement: “The good old-fashioned punishment of a good flagellation with a thin, soft, old leather, or carpet slipper, not with the sole of the slipper, however, is still the best mode of punishment where severe correction is found necessary, for besides not harming in the least it is yet a punishment most generally disliked by children, and it has invariably a salutary effect.”
“I told you, you’re not allowed to eat raisins! They anger up the blood and make you violent!”
Q: Nobody could think of an effective, less violent way to punish a child?
A: In Self-Culture, and Perfection of Character, Including the Management of Youth, Orson Squire Fowler tells the story of a friend’s willful and disobedient five-year-old daughter. Her father had tried everything to quell her fits and bring her under control. “He had used the rod, and tried coaxing, but all to no purpose,” Fowler writes. “Nothing he could do had yet subdued her. She would break out into most violent fits of anger, throw herself on the floor, beat her head against it, strike, kick, and exhibit the utmost fury.”
So, this exasperated father tried a new technique, one that he had learned from his brother, the less published but just as vocal Lorenzo Niles Fowler: “The next morning, on his daughter having one of her mad fits, he poured a pitcher of water on her head.”
Nothing happened the first time, but by the fifth pitcher, the girl calmed down and did as she was told. This technique worked, expl
ained Fowler, because of “the sudden shock it gives the whole system, especially when poured on the top of the head, where the great pole or center of sensation is located.” Plus at some point it probably feels a bit like drowning.
Q: Is that… that sounds like the concept behind waterboarding.
A: Oh, no! No, no, no! Nothing so horrid! Especially not compared to the origin of this method, which was Lorenzo and Orson’s father repeatedly dunking Lorenzo’s head in a full water barrel to break his spirit. That’s more like waterboarding.
Q: Oh Lord.
A: Ha! Don’t go looking there for docile parenting support. The Judeo-Christian God ran a tight ship! Onto which he let only eight people while drowning the rest of humanity in a flood. Comparatively, He’s probably fine with the “pitcher of cold water over the head” method.
A teacher employs a new form of discipline to soothe a riled student. Because if the government won’t let you discipline prison—students by standard methods, you need to get creative.
Q: Is it true that teachers were allowed to beat students?
A: And how! It was well into the twentieth century before teachers stopped disciplining children by whacking them with “The Board of Education.” But again, society did not consider this “beating.” And of course, most educators took care not to overdo it. After all, as the anonymous author of the 1879 edition of Manual for Teachers: On Discipline warns, if you rely too much on corporal punishment, it will lose its effect.
“The commoner it is, the less effective it is,” this education expert explains. “It should be administered by the head-teacher in private, or with only a few witnesses. Public corporal punishment has a tendency to brutalize all who take part in it and witness it.”
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