Parenting In The 18th Century: A Comparative Study

Both of these research studies show how far our society has come since the 18th century. In the 18th century obedience was a central discussion in childbearing. Restraining a child in order to have them obey was a common occurrence and socially accepted. In the 19th century parents used isolation and shunning in order to achieve obedience. Any means of discipline was accepted in order to have a defiant child obey. There were even manuals written on obedience that said discipline could start as early as 10 months. The purpose of discipline was to have the children develop a relationship with God and their parents. It also developed an orderly society and family. None of this took into account the use of emotions and discipline together. That
is the purpose of the research project by Stearns. Stearns looked at the emotions of fear, anger and cheerfulness and how they are related to obedience. He discovered that happy children obeyed better than fearful children. The study also revealed that most angry children will obey their parents when they are not angry. The majority of these situations involve both an angry parent and an angry child. Cheerful discipline started to appear in the early 19th century. This meant that children not only obey but also have a cheerful heart (Stearns, 2014). It appears the Protestants were disciplining their children in a Biblical way according to Proverbs 29:17 “Discipline your son, and he will give you rest; he will give delight to your heart”. However, they may have forgotten Ephesians 6:4 which was a reminder about anger. “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord”. The change from wanting a defiant child to a cheerful child is reflected in Proverbs 17:22 “A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones”. The new ideas that I explored by doing this assignment is that there are many different types of parenting depending on the type of behavior the child is exhibiting, what the time period is and the ethnicity that someone describes themselves as.
I believe parents should put rules in place for their children to follow and enforce them. However, I do not believe a parent should be a harsh punisher when the children break those rules. The way that this relates to my relationship to my parents is that my parents basically raised me this way and it seemed to have worked for me. If I did something wrong my parents would take away privileges instead physically punishing me. These privileges might have included watching the television, playing video games, playing in my room, etc. I did discover research findings that support the idea of setting rules for children and expecting them to be obeyed. The research study by Stearns tells how obedience was required in the nineteenth century in order to properly run a household and farm. The research study by Holtrop et al. tells how discipline is a part of Latino society. The parents in the research study by Colalillo et al. is being conducted because the parents are trying to figure out why their children are not obeying. There is contradictory evidence about the use of harsh punishment. Any type of punishment was acceptable in the eighteenth and nineteenth century according to Stearns. However, Holtrop et al. reports that the Latino society is able to achieve respect and discipline without using harsh punishment. All of these surveys could have been avoided if the participants had taken the time to read the Bible and see what the Lord had to say about discipline and obedience. The number one rule for parents should be Proverbs 22:6 which says “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it”. The number one rule for children should be Ephesians 6:1 which says “Children, obey
your parents in the Lord, for this is right”. These verses are self-explanatory with no room for argument. Most importantly, one must never forget how important prayer is as mentioned in Jeremiah 29:12 “Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you”.