# Downton Abbey question regarding kids from poor families **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 11, 2013, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-question-regarding-kids-from-poor-families/660684 "2013-06-11T01:28:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BrokenBriton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@BrokenBriton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrokenBriton)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2013, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-question-regarding-kids-from-poor-families/660684/21 "2013-11-01T10:11:55Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > 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? Claire98909’s preoccupation aside, this is a good post imo. We know exploitation of children was standard - they worked from what age?, we now understand that historically child abusers migrated to specific occupations - for example, the Catholic church shows us how schools, orphanages, etc, attracted men with an ‘interest’ in children. Also, even I can trace a huge shift in societal attitudes during my lifetime so goodness knows what people turned a blind eye to 100 years ago. In relation to the Daisy character, I guess anything is possible but my impression was she seemed wholly naive and innocent. I thought Thomas was effectivly her boy band cruch. , ---
**Author:** ![Claire98909](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@Claire98909](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claire98909)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2013, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-question-regarding-kids-from-poor-families/660684/22 "2013-11-01T16:29:42Z")
But are we supposed to believe that Mrs. Patmore rescued her and put her to work at Downton when she was as young as 6? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2013, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-question-regarding-kids-from-poor-families/660684/23 "2013-11-01T17:06:12Z")
Sure, why not? I am betting it would have been seen as a remarkable act of kindness. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2013, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-question-regarding-kids-from-poor-families/660684/24 "2013-11-01T17:39:05Z")
**Claire** - You might be interested in the book [Below Stairs](http://www.amazon.com/Below-Stairs-Inspired-Upstairs-Downstairs/dp/1250023211/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&qid=1358782205&sr=8-13&keywords=cook+biography), an autobiography of a girl who was put into service as a scullery maid by her mother when she was 12, because the family couldn’t afford to feed all the kids. I think Margaret Powell was what Julian Fellowes was thinking about when he wrote the character of Daisy. StG ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2013, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-question-regarding-kids-from-poor-families/660684/25 "2013-11-01T17:48:55Z")
> [@Claire98909](#): > > But are we supposed to believe that Mrs. Patmore rescued her and put her to work at Downton when she was as young as 6? Why not? In A Little Princess, Sara starts her fancy school at 7 and is orphaned and turned into a servant at 8, and I am sure that in Great Houses you would find fairly young kids doing things if you peeked downstairs. I could imagine a number of things to do, watching stuff cook, helping to prep foods for cooking, helping the washerwomen with laundry, helping the gardeners with the yards and gardens, helping the grooms with taking care of horses and their tack. There are actually a fair amount of things a really young kid can do around a house if you think of them as miniature adults and not chidren. How about today? Pick up your room, let the dog out/in, take your dish to the kitchen, can you please get me that \< \>, can you stop your sister from crying? Play with her for a minute … ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2013, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-question-regarding-kids-from-poor-families/660684/26 "2013-11-01T17:53:24Z")
> [@BrokenBriton](#): > > Claire98909’s preoccupation aside, this is a good post imo. > > We know exploitation of children was standard - they worked from what age?, we now understand that historically child abusers migrated to specific occupations - for example, the Catholic church shows us how schools, orphanages, etc, attracted men with an ‘interest’ in children. > > Also, even I can trace a huge shift in societal attitudes during my lifetime so goodness knows what people turned a blind eye to 100 years ago. > > In relation to the Daisy character, I guess anything is possible but my impression was she seemed wholly naive and innocent. I thought Thomas was effectivly her boy band cruch. > , I’m not sure I’d characterize it as such. First, children worked. Modern childhood, mostly leisure and education, is a modern invention, an artifact of industrialization and before that a conceit of the rich. Anyone who’s prepared a decent meal (Thanksgiving) from scratch knows that there’s a lot of work when you have to make things from scratch. Peeling potatoes, cutting vegetables, even continuously stirring the pot. Now make taht 3 meals a day. Before iceboxes, a lot of the items would come from the market within the last day (walking), or you dug the stuff up from the garden and plucked the chickens yourself. Add in laundry, cleaning by hand, etc. - housewife was not a full-time job, it was a multi-person job. An extra set of hands would help as soon as they were able. Out on the farm everyone who could helped with teh chores and the production work. A 6-year-old could help set the table, stir the pots, hold the other end when folding sheets, and generally make herself progressively more useful as she got older. I wouldn’t characterize it as “exploitation”, just as the way it was. Unless we’re talking Cinderella-evil-stepmother, downstairs was probably a much better and more relaxed world than drunk and neglectful parents. Class snobbery comes into it, the owners probably would ot want to see the girl wandering their house like she owned it or hobnobing with their kids, but I doubt they worked a child to death (unlike the mills down the road). As for child sexual abuse… I’m not an expert, never studied it, but from what I read and what’s in the news - people are pretty much born with their preferences embedded. The catholic church for example - in more traditional societies (Irish, Italian, etc.) it was not uncommon for the devout mother to pressure a boy in the family to become a priest, or they’d get encouragement from the parish school. During the teen years, the ones who were not interested in girls would realize they did not feel what their peers were expressing about the girls around them. Some may have interpreted this as a “calling” if properly pressured by their elders. So the older preisthood likely contains a disproportionate number of men who are not heterosexually “normal”. Of course, unless they propositioned the wrong types, gay priests probably did not attract a lot of attention. Priests who dealt with young children OTOH, had opportunity. I seriously doubt that a predator becomes a priest for the opportunity. There are plenty of less demanding lifestyles with much better access to children. Those with pedophile tendencies likely joined teh priesthood sincerely, but sucuum to temptation eventually when they get opportunities. More likely they hit the news because they are an identifiable group and the acts are seen as that much more hypocritical. Odds are there are many more risks from a scout leader or teacher. It seems the risk is everywhere; quite often the risk is a family member or family friend. I suspect the risk is from a specific percentage of the population. the prevalence probably no more or less now than then. The big difference is the risk of getting caught. Today, children are more likely to be listened to and believed, and adults are less likely to be in denial. So I suspect it is not unusual for a child to have a miserable childhood, especially at the turn of the century, without necessarily being sexually molested. There’s a lot of miserable childhood stories out there, and a lot of them do not involve sexual molestation. ---
**Author:** ![Lissla\_Lissar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lissla\_Lissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissla_Lissar)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-question-regarding-kids-from-poor-families/660684/27 "2013-11-02T01:16:15Z")
I have only watched Season One of Downtown, but I was re-reading Lark Rise to Candleford yesterday, (Flora Thompson’s autobiographical novel about the late Victorian peasant class), and she says that girls 11-13 were routinely sent out ‘into service’, starting as scullery maids or the bottom-most type of house maids, and worked their way up basically until they were ready to marry or had made a career of house service (housekeeper, cook). So Daisy being young and a scullery maid was normal. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-question-regarding-kids-from-poor-families/660684/28 "2013-11-02T01:27:30Z")
Duplicating my post from another thread: **Claire98909** , you need to find another subject to talk about. This "was Daisy sexually abused? thing has been the only subject you’ve talked about for the last couple of weeks and it’s too much. Consider broadening your interests. ---
**Author:** ![Claire98909](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@Claire98909](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claire98909)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-question-regarding-kids-from-poor-families/660684/29 "2013-11-02T18:50:56Z")
But in the season 2 Christmas Special Daisy complained to Mrs. Patmore “You talk to me like when I first came, but I know things now.” If Daisy had arrived at Downton when she was 6, would Mrs. Patmore really have been a huge bitch to her? ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-question-regarding-kids-from-poor-families/660684/30 "2013-11-02T21:30:35Z")
> [@Claire98909](#): > > But in the season 2 Christmas Special Daisy complained to Mrs. Patmore “You talk to me like when I first came, but I know things now.” If Daisy had arrived at Downton when she was 6, would Mrs. Patmore really have been a huge bitch to her? Who said she was being a bitch? It’d be like if I still talked to my teenaged daughter like she was a little kid and hadn’t learned anything. She just means Ms Patmore wasn’t giving her credit for knowing more now than she did when she was new to the house. ---
**Author:** ![TashaKitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d26b3c/32.png) [@TashaKitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TashaKitty)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-question-regarding-kids-from-poor-families/660684/31 "2013-11-02T21:38:09Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > Who said she was being a bitch? It’d be like if I still talked to my teenaged daughter like she was a little kid and hadn’t learned anything. She just means Ms Patmore wasn’t giving her credit for knowing more now than she did when she was new to the house. Well, to be fair, Mrs. Patmore is kinda a bitch. Actually not kinda a bitch - a major bitch. Doesn’t mean I love her character any less, though :D:D:D [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/downton-abbey-question-regarding-kids-from-poor-families/660684.md?page=1)