I’m a 31 year-old male. I can show you pictures of ME in a dress (but I won’t)… I was born in a big city but my mom was basically born on a trapline in the woods.
Actually, the premise of the OP made me think of a similar scenario in a novel - Dave Duncan’s Seventh Sword trilogy. One of the hero’s companions on his Great Quest is a baby around 6 months, who pees all over the hero at first meeting.
Apart from that the baby does pretty much nothing during the entire course of the series, and is entirely irrelevant to the plot. However, given that his mother has been enslaved into prostitution, it’s highly realistic that he exists. Great story, BTW
To be fair, they think our practice of letting a baby stew in it’s own shit is really gross. And they point out the health consequences- diaper rash, UTIs, etc.
Also note that babies generally don’t “randomly shit anywhere.” Their caregivers (in China, it’s nearly always a grandmother) are very attuned to the kid’s responses and needs. In urban settings, most of the time they manage to get the kid over a toilet, basin, or in a pinch a plastic bag. In extremely rural settings- like what you may find in medieval times- adults did their business pretty much out in the open some ways from the house, too. We didn’t start worrying too much about sewage until we started urbanizing.
Look at this documentary about life in medieval England. There’s shit everywhere.
I’m reminded of the film Willow, which deals with a baby travelling in a quasi-medieval fantasy setting.
There’s a line something like “You will look after her, won’t you? Here’s her milk… and her changing rags…”
So, it doesn’t dwell on the subject, but for a brief moment the viewer is reminded that they didn’t exactly have Pampers on hand, and rags would have to be used (and presumably washed).
Okay, a question:
Why is it usually a grandmother? Why doesn’t the mom take care of the kid? Or do you mean that the grandma watches the kid while the mom is at work, instead of day care? (which makes total sense, if she’s available to do it.)
Also…in China, the whole split pants thing is done in “urbanized” areas, isn’t it, not just in the middle of rural farmland? Even if they’re not pooping, amend my statement to “peeing in the street like a naughty dog” and it still stands. If a kid gets diaper rash, that only affects the kid. Peeing in the street affects the experience of everyone who has to use that street, the majority of whom had no hand or choice in making a kid, and some of whom probably don’t even like kids. A dog is just an animal, but people and the caretakers of people should be held to a higher standard, I would think. Do you know how they defend that aspect of it? I’m curious.
What’s to defend? Everyone they know does it. The only people squawking are hoity-toity foreigners that they never actually see or speak to. That would be like asking “How do the Americans defend nuclear families when it’s obvious that all generations should live together and take care of each other?”
I am not Chinese, and I haven’t lived here too long.
In my understanding, in general parents live with their children, especially if there is an infant in the house. In my host-family, the sets of grandparents switched off, living with my host parents for a few weeks at a time. The grandparents will act as primary caregiver and do most of the housekeeping (cooking, etc.) so that the parents can continue their busy lives. Of course the mothers will continue to care for the baby before and after work, but the grandparents do most of the real work. On any Chinese street, day or night, you’ll see hundreds of grandmothers fussing over infants. In general, it seems to work. The old people continue to be useful, get provided for, and seem to really enjoy being around the grandkids. The parents get to focus on their careers without putting off childbearing as late as we do. And the children get tons (maybe too much) attention.
Yeah, babies do end up peeing on the ground pretty often. Chinese regard the ground a bit different than Americans. For example, during meal (even in a home or a mid-range restaurant) it’s expected to throw bones, peanut shells, etc. on the ground. It will be cleaned up later. Nobody worries about it. Baby pee isn’t seen as too big of a problem. And then there is the infamous (and pretty gross) spitting. On the other hand, there are people working 24/7 sweeping the streets and the street washing machines come by every morning. And you ever, ever wear your shoes inside, since they’ve been on the dirty street. It’s just a really different view of what is “clean” space and what is “dirty” space.
meenie7, do you mind me asking how old you are? You seem very young from your posts in this thread, and a bit lacking in knowledge of the world outside your immediate area, either in the past or the present.
No offense, it just sounds like a lack of a decent worldview, and that might be because you’re young.
There wouldn’t have been a lot of poop lying around. Like animal manure, human dejections were collected and used as fertilizer. People might not have been clean, but they weren’t wasteful.
If you have to take care of an infant you get over your aversion to the various fluids and substances that babies excrete, or you put the baby in a basket on the church steps. You deal with poop and pee and spit-up all day every day, and it goes everywhere. And you just shrug your shoulders and clean it up.
One more thing…if this baby is six months old, what is it eating? There wasn’t any formula in medieval times, and cow’s milk or goat’s milk won’tsubstitute. Either the baby’s mother nurses the baby, or another lactating woman nurses the baby, or the baby dies.
Why am I suddenly reminded of Blackadder II?
“Well, what we’re talking about in, erm, privy terms is the very latest in front-wall, fresh-air orifices, combined with a wide-capacity gutter installation below.”
“You mean you crap out a window?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, good. We’ll take it, I can’t stand those dirty indoor things.”
You may find Terry Jones’ Medieval Lives interesting, particularly the first episode about the peasant. One of the things he mentions is that all food had to be boiled for at least two hours because the fields were fertilized with fresh human excrement and therefore a fantastic source of e-coli bacteria (not that they knew about bacteria, mind, just that they knew the lettuce would make you sick if it wasn’t boiled. Is this the distant source of British desire to boil everything until it’s brown? Hmm…)
Goat’s milk is a perfectly fine substitute milk for a 6 month old. A six week old and it’s a little more dicey, although it was (is) still done when there was no breastmilk to be had. Goat milk is better, nutrient percentage wise, than cow’s milk, actually. The balance of fats to proteins to sugars is closer to human milk than cow’s milk is.
At 6 months, technically, the baby can digest solids. Might not be the healthiest baby on the block, but babies weren’t expected to be terribly healthy in those days anyhow. (“Those days” being post-agriculture, pre-industrial.) To feed solids, the caregiver will either have to chop foods up very fine (a bitch of a job before food processors) or simply chew up the food, spit it into her hand, and feed the baby pre-chewed mush.
Sorry, did I just blow the OP’s mind? I won’t mention nibbling on the baby’s fingernails to trim them, then.
Or biting off the umbilical cord?
Still, for nails, wouldn’t they just break if they got long enough? Or are babies inactive enough that they don’t?
I’m 29.
I think you guys are getting the wrong impression, anyway. I know the middle ages were gross and everything was dirty. I really like history and I’m not ignorant…but it’s not naive to say that poop everywhere is gross, even if it was true.
Also, in reply to the formula thing, she makes formula with magic, too. She has to…the baby isn’t hers (in fact, he isn’t anyone’s – he’s a person with an adult mind who’s been made a baby by a magic spell gone wrong) and he doesn’t have teeth so he needs something to drink.
WhyNot – hee hee. My mind is…a little amazed that anyone survived eating ABC food like that, but not blown, yet. 
Why bother with the hand? You chew up the food, kiss the baby on the mouth and push the food in with your tongue.
Another nitpick! Poop from a typical healthy breast fed baby isn’t gross. Yes, I’m seriously claiming that my baby’s shit didn’t stink—it kind of smelled like yogurt or buttered popcorn.
Until she started eating solid foods. After that, it was like a toxic waste dump crawled up her ass and died.
even sven, thank you for your informative answer If you look at that way – that there’s an assumption that the ground is really dirty and so you don’t track it in the house, etc. – it makes more sense. (I knew it was traditional to take off your shoes before you go in the house there, but now I know why, in part. :))
It’s nice to have a perspective from someone like you, from the U.S., looking at foreign cultures. I hope I get the chance to travel someday outside the U.S. (Sadly, I’ve never been able to afford it, even though I want to.)
I’d always read that baby poop doesn’t stink for the first few weeks (so the parents don’t kill it out of disgust before they get attached?) and then it gets bad. Hmmm. This is a really good reason to breast feed if what you’re saying is true, Lemur!