Downton Abbey question regarding kids from poor families

Cafe Society
1

So I’m going to assume that at least some of you guys watch “Downton Abbey”. I’m wondering what Daisy’s (the kitchen maid) childhood would have been like, for those of you who are knowledgeable about the lives of the poor in the Edwardian Era in England.

I’m asking because Daisy always seemed like such an innocent person until I read this excerpt from “The Chronicles of Downton Abbey: A New Era” by Jessica Fellowes, Matthew Sturgis, and Julian Fellowes:

“Daisy is treated as an inconsequential junior by the other servants. ‘She would have had a tough childhood’, says Julian Fellowes, ‘so low in class that there is a greater distance between her and Carson than there is between him and Lord Grantham. They’re from the functioning upper end of the scale and she’s from the dysfunctional lower end.’ In fact, she would have been almost rescued by Mrs Patmore. ‘We know she has hardly any family at all and Mrs Patmore may have taken pity on her and brought her into the house,’ says Julian.”

Daisy also said herself in one episode that in all her childhood, she never had anybody she could always trust.

I just hope that doesn’t mean she was sexually abused. I’ve asked this question elsewhere and the majority of people seem to think that her naivete in regards to Thomas’ sexuality is a good indicator that she wasn’t sexually abused as a child, and that the excerpt from the book is simply indicating that she was perhaps neglected.

For those of you who have knowledge of that era, was child abuse rampant among the poor? What percentage of children from poor families were sexually abused? Was it a widespread problem or was a surprisingly small percentage of children molested? What about children who were in workhouses? Were the majority of them fortunate enough to survive the workhouse without getting sexually abused? Was there a difference in the treatment of children who lived in the big cities as opposed to the countryside?

2

Where do you get “sexually abused” from the part you quoted? Fellowes is just saying, “Her family was really, really poor.”

3

She is a poor orphan in an era where welfare meant the kindness if strangers or migration to the colonies. She had no education or skill, unlike many others of the Downstairs staff.

4

Do we know how old she’s supposed to be in the first episode? I always assumed since they cast such a tiny actress, she was supposed to be really young, although maybe that was just supposed to be malnutrition from her poor upbringing. IIRC, her romantic subplots don’t really start developing until the war by which point 5 years or so have elapsed. She could have spent a significant portion of her childhood working in the house.

5

To be poor in that era was pretty horrific. No help from the government except at the workhouse which was bad even by their standards. To be a poor child would usually mean begging for scraps like those children we see in the third world living off what they can scrounge from rubbish tips.

Society was, as has been quoted, intensely hierarchical, and at the lower end, the different statuses would be fiercely defended and there was little or no upward mobility. Daisy was at the bottom of the heap in Downton, but at least she was fed and cared for. She would have seen herself as immensely superior to a beggar on the street, and I suspect, would have little sympathy for them.

6

I don’t think it’s explained in the series, but if she was an orphan, she would most likely have been in an orphanage (such as Barnardo’s). To go into service would have been very typical for a girl from an orphanage.

And I think we need a definition of ‘poor’. Poor doesn’t mean destitute, half my family in that era would have been described as ‘poor’. Alcohol wife-beating casual dock worker great-grandad, yes, digging in rubbish tips or begging on the streets, no.

7

Child abuse was common - physical punishment for discipline was common. drunk or problem parents taking out their frustration by beating their kids was accepted in all strata of society; heck, caning in school was common.

Sexual abuse? Apparently it happened quite a lot; unlike today, nobody wanted to hear about it, and it was not unusual for the victim to be ignored or blamed. (Heck, you hear about that today). the difference was, since nobody wanted to talk about it, it was easier to get away with it.

The other thing was adult supervision. this would be a plus and a minus. Today, parents watch their children like hawks and don’t let them go anywhere. In the 50’s and 60’s I remember kids as young as 3 would “go out to play” and parents would check occasionally, but anything could have been happening. In Edwardian and Victorian times, I imagine it was worse. OTOH, in a poor crowded neighbourhood there would be more extended family and more prying eyes, it would be harder to get alone time to do something.

There’s the one explanation that a lot of the messed up women Freud treated in Vienna were in fact vicitms of childhood sexual abuse. What was originally specific allegations against some family members or servants, Freud morphed into “Electra complex” or “Oedipus complex” and childhood sexual obsessions; seems accusing some of the high society of Vienna of child abuse would be a “career-limiting move”. Instead, Freud took psychology on a 100-year wrong turn to advance his career.

Lewis Carrol (Charles Dogson) among his hobbies liked to take pictures of young girls in states of undress. Society at the time, especially “genteel women”, seemed to be incredibly naiive about what this implied… apparently some even sat in on the photo shoots. Although Alice Liddel’s parents apparently decided that it was not a good idea for her to keep hanging around with him as she got older. Socially, he wasn’t a “good catch” for their daughter’s hand.

So was the character abused? Young vulnderable girl in a very poor home? Who knows. Depends. Just because a father would be an unemployed, unreliable drunk, does not mean he abused girls sexually. Indeed he may have been scary enough and volatile enough to keep outside predators away. Anything could have happened. it’s up to the writers to fill in the details.

I guess the question, as alluded to in prvious posts, is what sort of behaviour would you expect to see in an abused child as an adolescent? Fear of men? Precocious sexuality and promiscuity? Poor self esteem?

8

I grew up in a middle class home and parental supervision was, in today’s terms, very laid back. As a four-year-old with an eight-year-old sister we used to go pretty much anywhere we wanted. We came home for meals and bedtime, but neither of our parents had any idea what we were up to half the time.

On the other hand, we knew nothing of sex. It wasn’t talked about and there was no TV. In the cinema, when we were older, one of the participants had to keep a foot on the floor at all times, and there was no nudity at all.

9

Also, probably both parents - assuming both we living and at home - would have been working very long hours and any children would have been put to work very young, again for 14 hour days in sometimes very dangerous conditions. Even if Daisy had both parents she would have almost certainly have been largely unparented and underfed. If service in a grand house was offered, she might have started as young as eight or ten years old, doing the hardest and nastiest work in the house.

Funny but awful bit about poor Victorian children from “Horrible Histories”
Victorian Child

10

In the latter part of season 1, Daisy said to William “Never in my childhood, did I have someone I could always trust.”

Doesn’t that statement sort of reek of a past of sexual abuse?

11

Life was rough for the really really poor. I don’t know that anyone back then would think to qualify sexual abuse as different from any other abuse - and most forms of abuse were totally ignored anyway. Men were allowed and encouraged to beat their wives, spousal sexual abuse was an unheard-of concept, and you’re wondering if a destitute orphan girl, who if she was lucky would find a place in a kitchen or as a cleaning maid, got sexually abused?

The answer is yes.

12

Not sure why you would think so.

Lots of people have losers for family and friends - but the type of losers who aren’t abusers.

There are lots of people in my life that I didn’t trust - not of them sexually abused me.

I don’t remember the specific scene, but unless there is more to it - I just don’t see it. I know you have this fascination with Daisy - and hey - I love her character, but I think you see things that other people just don’t see.

13

Not necessarily. People can betray your trust, or let you down, in other ways than by sexually abusing you, or turning a blind eye to sexual abuse. Daisy may have been physically and emotionally neglected, and even physically and emotionally abused, without necessarily having been sexually abused. And, as others have pointed out, Daisy’s character, attitudes and behaviour, as written, are not stereotypical for a young person with a history of sexual abuse. And, since the writing in Downton Abbey deals largely in stereotypes, I think that tells us something.

Having said all that, it’s likely that child sexual abuse was widespread in Victorian Britain. (Child prostitution certainly was.) But if, as hypothesised, Daisy was brought into service at Downton at a very young age, that could have helped to reduce her risk of being subject to sexual abuse.

14

Well the guy above you seems to disagree.

15

Actually, I don’t. Daisy *was * rescued from that destitute life, and it seems to be that the rescue was before she was old enough to go into “service” or be put into a workhouse, or kicked out onto the street (one of which would have happened at roughly age 6).

Daisy specifically doesn’t show any signs of sexual abuse, and her position as essentially the “ward” of a powerful household servant means that she’s largely protected from depredations by the other staff.

If she had not been rescued, then yes, she would very likely have quite quickly added sexual abuse to her litany of neglect and physical/mental/emotional abuse. I was answering the larger question of Victorian destitute child sexual abuse. That answer remains yes.

16

Moderator Action

While there is a factual topic here (prevalence of child abuse/sexual abuse during the early 1900s) this thread is focusing more on how this plays into the show Downtown Abbey rather than the factual portion of the topic. For that reason, I think it is better suited to Cafe Society. Note that comments on the factual portion of this topic are still permitted in CS as the general background of the time is relevant to the show.

I would also caution Claire98909 to not turn this thread into a repetitive obsession as was done with your thread on the pregnancy of a particular Downtown Abbey actress or this thread will likely be closed as well.

Moving thread from General Questions to Cafe Society.

17

But you’re essentially saying that if she hadn’t been rescued by the time she was 6 she would have been sexually abused. I’ve seen no evidence suggesting that Daisy had been at Downton for more than a few years by the time of the first episode of the series. If she was around 15 at the start of the series, she would’ve been there since she was about 12 (which is the age I read that most girls went into service).

18

And let’s not forget her attraction to Thomas based on physical appearance vs her non-attraction to William. Don’t victims of childhood sexual abuse often form relationships based on lust vs love?

19

Not to me, depending on how old she was before she was rescued. It could be a prostitute mother who took to drink and drugs that effectively abandoned her - spending all her money on drink and drugs letting Daisy be barely dressed in rags and wandering the street looking in the garbage for food and begging. The little match girl dying from starvation and cold was common enough that the uthor didn’t feel the need to really explain anything about her poverty. Read Dickens for a look at early 19th century life for the poor.

20

So do most of the rest of us, at one time or another. It’s called being a teenager. (Or my ex-boyfriend.)

There’s nothing to suggest Daisy was sexually abused. It is of course, like any number of things, possible, but no, the fact that she never had anyone she could completely trust says nothing about whether she was sexually abused or not. It just means she had a shitty childhood with no-one who cared for her reliably.