# When in history did raising a newborn begin to be seen as grueling? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 23, 2020, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-history-did-raising-a-newborn-begin-to-be-seen-as-grueling/846866 "2020-01-23T20:58:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2020, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-history-did-raising-a-newborn-begin-to-be-seen-as-grueling/846866/1 "2020-01-23T20:58:28Z")
When in human history did people parenting a newborn begin to have the luxury of considering it really hard work? It feels like a fairly recent thing - I doubt mothers and fathers in the middle ages or even pilgrim and Oregon Trail days spent a lot of time complaining about how little sleep they got and how much work a newborn is, but I also get the sense that advice like “sleep when the baby sleeps” that suggests it’s really difficult predates the last 40-50 years when a lot of women joined the workforce. Did this attitude spring up instead when people began having fewer babies? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2020, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-history-did-raising-a-newborn-begin-to-be-seen-as-grueling/846866/2 "2020-01-23T21:51:59Z")
I dunno; ancient texts that talk about parenthood all seem to take it for granted that it’s a lot of work. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2020, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-history-did-raising-a-newborn-begin-to-be-seen-as-grueling/846866/3 "2020-01-23T22:07:02Z")
Just a really wild guess here, but perhaps when men started to do more than about 10% of the work. So about 1974ish… ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2020, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-history-did-raising-a-newborn-begin-to-be-seen-as-grueling/846866/4 "2020-01-23T22:11:04Z")
Considering in the Middle ages ladies would Hire wet nurses so they didn’t have to deal with feeding their kids I would assume even back then they thought parenting would be better if you could get out of the terrible parts. My guess is you’re looking at at least a 1,000 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2020, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-history-did-raising-a-newborn-begin-to-be-seen-as-grueling/846866/5 "2020-01-23T22:28:57Z")
Day 1. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2020, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-history-did-raising-a-newborn-begin-to-be-seen-as-grueling/846866/6 "2020-01-23T22:30:30Z")
My thinking is that it started to seem as grueling when working outside the house (on a farm or office or factory) was worse. Now that most outside jobs aren’t very challenging, dealing with a baby seems arduous by comparison. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2020, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-history-did-raising-a-newborn-begin-to-be-seen-as-grueling/846866/7 "2020-01-23T22:47:35Z")
I recall reading that up until the late 1700’s - early 1800, people generally slept in two segments a night. They’d sleep from a couple of hours past dusk for about 4 hours, wake up for a couple of hours and then go back to sleep. How little sleep someone gets depends on what they are doing besides taking care of the newborn - a woman who is doing non-time sensitive household tasks and who can sleep during the day when the baby does will not be nearly as sleep-deprived as one who has to get up at 6 to go to work, or care for slightly older children and then pretty much stay awake until evening. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2020, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-history-did-raising-a-newborn-begin-to-be-seen-as-grueling/846866/8 "2020-01-23T23:16:33Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#): > > Day 1. This ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2020, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-history-did-raising-a-newborn-begin-to-be-seen-as-grueling/846866/9 "2020-01-23T23:57:03Z")
> [@Oredigger77](#): > > Considering in the Middle ages ladies would Hire wet nurses so they didn’t have to deal with feeding their kids I would assume even back then they thought parenting would be better if you could get out of the terrible parts. My guess is you’re looking at at least a 1,000 years ago. Yes, and the hiring of wetnurses goes back to ancient times, not just the comparatively recent medieval era. Cf., e.g., the recommendations of the medical author [Soranus of Ephesus in the 1st/2nd c. CE](https://www.biusante.parisdescartes.fr/ishm/vesalius/vesx1996x02x02x086x097.pdf): > [@](#): > > Concern over the mother growing prematurely old or becoming emaciated due to breast feeding provoked Soranus of Ephesus to recommend selecting a nurse. He went even further in recommending the mother only if she shows the characteristics of the best wet-nurse. […] > > Soranus recommended the provision of as many wet-nurses as available so that the child would be safely and successfully nourished. […] > > Doctors insisted that the nurse should be prudent, clean, tidy, not ill-tempered, sympathetic, merry, easy going, gentle and self-controlled in relation to drinking and sexuality. […] > > Soranus allowed her to be a little older, between twenty and forty, for “younger women are not experienced in child upbringing; they are still careless and childish in their minds. […]” […] > > Surviving Greek nursing contracts and acknowledgments of receipt of wages for nursing from Roman Egypt indicate that free nurses outnumber slave ones. […] > > […] some contracts show that the baby is nursed at the nurse’s home. They clearly oblige the nurse to nurse only one baby at a time. […] > > Nurses were prohibited not only from spoiling their milk but also from having sexual intercourse. Both doctors and laymen prohibited the nurse from sleeping with men. Whereas doctors explained the reasons, contracts remained silent. Doctors feared that sexual intercourse would diminish, spoil and even suppress milk as it either induces menstruation (Mnesitheus did not recommend the nurse whose menses had begun again) or leads eventually to conception. So the care and feeding of an infant was considered physically taxing to the extent that women who could afford the cost routinely outsourced it to adult professionals, for whom the care of one child (or even the shared care of one child, if multiple nurses were employed) provided a living. That sounds to me as though infant care was consciously recognized as a big and demanding job. Remember also that ancient (male) writers tend to take the grueling labor of **all** working-class and slave employees, particularly the female ones, for granted as an unremarkable feature of ordinary life. The fact that surviving texts don’t express a lot of sympathy about the burdens of childrearing doesn’t mean that it wasn’t recognized as burdensome. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2020, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-history-did-raising-a-newborn-begin-to-be-seen-as-grueling/846866/10 "2020-01-24T00:49:07Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > When in human history did people parenting a newborn begin to have the luxury of considering it really hard work? It feels like a fairly recent thing - I doubt mothers and fathers in the middle ages or even pilgrim and Oregon Trail days spent a lot of time complaining about how little sleep they got and how much work a newborn is, but I also get the sense that advice like “sleep when the baby sleeps” that suggests it’s really difficult predates the last 40-50 years when a lot of women joined the workforce. Did this attitude spring up instead when people began having fewer babies? I’d guess it started around the time that factory work became common, and mobility created the “nuclear family.” When everyone in the family worked at home - as farmers or piece workers, and when multiple families (parents, adult siblings, and their families) shared a household, the work of caring for a child was shared among multiple people, but when Dad goes off to the factory for 12 or 14 hours, and grandma and two aunts no longer are around to help out, the job gets a lot harder (and there’s no one to talk to about it either). Also big families create a lot of older siblings to help out as well - if you have a fourteen year old, a 12 year old, twin 10 year olds, a four year old and a baby, the work isn’t six times as bad as caring for one baby is - because the older brothers and sisters can help. ---
**Author:** ![Kimera757](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kimera757/32/3765_2.png) [@Kimera757](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimera757)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2020, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-history-did-raising-a-newborn-begin-to-be-seen-as-grueling/846866/11 "2020-01-24T01:04:45Z")
I couldn’t tell you when it started, but it’s gotten more difficult over time. We now have fewer children, and we invest more time and resources into them. (Sometimes to incredible lengths, re worst helicopter parent stories _of adult children_.) Basic tasks like walking to school have become delayed (and that’s assuming you live close to school, which is not a guarantee) so the parents have to walk with the kids or drive them everywhere… and you don’t dare let them take public transit because that means you’re a “bad parent” who are letting your children face risk. Children have become more expensive. Every kid needs their own room, their own smartphone, maybe their own laptop. Because some parents schedule their kids lives, those kids are going to camps, piano lessons, after-school clubs, etc. Many of these things cost money. You need to save up for the kids’ education, and maybe you’ll let them live with you rent-free after they’ve entered the workforce. ---
**Author:** ![Surreal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@Surreal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surreal)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2020, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-history-did-raising-a-newborn-begin-to-be-seen-as-grueling/846866/12 "2020-01-24T01:11:42Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > I recall reading that up until the late 1700’s - early 1800, people generally slept in two segments a night. Not true. > **[Natural sleep and its seasonal variations in three pre-industrial societies -...](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26480842/)** > > How did humans sleep before the modern era? Because the tools to measure sleep under natural conditions were developed long after the invention of the electric devices suspected of delaying and reducing sleep, we investigated sleep in three... > [@](#): > > How did humans sleep before the modern era? Because the tools to measure sleep under natural conditions were developed long after the invention of the electric devices suspected of delaying and reducing sleep, **we investigated sleep in three preindustrial societies** [1-3]. We find that all three show similar sleep organization, suggesting that they express core human sleep patterns, most likely characteristic of pre-modern era Homo sapiens. Sleep periods, the times from onset to offset, averaged 6.9-8.5 hr, with sleep durations of 5.7-7.1 hr, amounts near the low end of those industrial societies [4-7]. There was a difference of nearly 1 hr between summer and winter sleep. Daily variation in sleep duration was strongly linked to time of onset, rather than offset. None of these groups began sleep near sunset, onset occurring, on average, 3.3 hr after sunset. Awakening was usually before sunrise. **The sleep period consistently occurred during the nighttime period of falling environmental temperature, was not interrupted by extended periods of waking, and terminated, with vasoconstriction, near the nadir of daily ambient temperature**. The daily cycle of temperature change, largely eliminated from modern sleep environments, may be a potent natural regulator of sleep. Light exposure was maximal in the morning and greatly decreased at noon, indicating that all three groups seek shade at midday and that light activation of the suprachiasmatic nucleus is maximal in the morning. Napping occurred on \<7% of days in winter and \<22% of days in summer. Mimicking aspects of the natural environment might be effective in treating certain modern sleep disorders. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2020, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-history-did-raising-a-newborn-begin-to-be-seen-as-grueling/846866/13 "2020-01-24T15:57:34Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Kimstu** : > > Remember also that ancient (male) writers tend to take the grueling labor of all working-class and slave employees, particularly the female ones, for granted as an unremarkable feature of ordinary life. As evidenced in the whole concept of the wetnurse. Those quotes take it for granted that it takes the nursing of multiple women to raise a single child… and yet, all of those wetnurses are nursing a child of their own in addition to the wealthy kid. How were the nurses’ children supposed to survive? ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2020, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-history-did-raising-a-newborn-begin-to-be-seen-as-grueling/846866/14 "2020-01-24T16:09:41Z")
At the risk of expanding the OP, ISTM that it is not just infants, but all aspects of childrearing that have increasingly presented as more demanding. At the same time, more and more of young adults’ shortcomings seem attributed to parental choices/actions/inactions. Of course, in olden days, more infants/kids died young… But absent neglect by the parents, or unusual health issues w/ the kid, I think babies/kids are tougher than they are given credit for, and the range of acceptable parental effort pretty broad. I think increased wealth and leisure play a large part in the increased emphasis placed on childrearing. I also think that 2-income households mae clear how much work raising a child (ad maintaining a household) is. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2020, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-history-did-raising-a-newborn-begin-to-be-seen-as-grueling/846866/15 "2020-01-24T16:14:18Z")
I am sure that Mrs Ugg in her cave thought that raising baby Uggs was hard work; waking up every few hours to feed the little blighter has always been a requirement unless some other lactating female was able to help out. Of course, she didn’t have social media to publish her problems on, and she would also have an extended family around to help out with any babies that actually survived past infancy. Might I also add, that even today, not all babies are tremendously hard work. Our two were sleeping 6 or 7 hours a night from a few weeks old. Our granddaughter did much the same. ---
**Author:** ![Emergency911](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/43a26b/32.png) [@Emergency911](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emergency911)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2020, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-history-did-raising-a-newborn-begin-to-be-seen-as-grueling/846866/16 "2020-01-24T16:49:54Z")
I think it has always been hard and taxing. What I think has changed is that venting about it openly has become socially acceptable. I was fortunate enough to know my great grandmother. She lived in a rural area and gave birth to all of her children at home with the help of only a neighbor. Even then, the neighbor was only there for the birth of the child, as she had to get home and tend to her own household. My great grandma talked about how she delivered all of her kids in the morning and still managed to have supper on the table when great grandpa got home. Back in those days, women were just expected to do it all and not complain. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2020, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-history-did-raising-a-newborn-begin-to-be-seen-as-grueling/846866/17 "2020-01-24T16:50:54Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Remember also that ancient (male) writers tend to take the grueling labor of **all** working-class and slave employees, particularly the female ones, for granted as an unremarkable feature of ordinary life. The fact that surviving texts don’t express a lot of sympathy about the burdens of childrearing doesn’t mean that it wasn’t recognized as burdensome. More to the point, the often rich, educated or at least well off, in other words the cohort whose works are most likely to have survived and who would be most inured from child-raising and its problems, both in space and in the sense of being able to afford sufficient help. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2020, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-history-did-raising-a-newborn-begin-to-be-seen-as-grueling/846866/18 "2020-01-24T17:23:34Z")
> [@Emergency911](#): > > Back in those days, women were just expected to do it all and not complain. I think that’s the telling sentence… Prior to the 1970s, most women were homemakers and stay-at-home moms, so raising babies and children was in a sense, considered to be their _job_, at least in terms of contributing to the family unit. But after the 1970s, more and more women have participated in the workforce in more and more professional and responsible capacities. So when you’re a full-time employee, and you’re suddenly thrust into caring for this little lump who cries, craps and pees on a schedule, and then at random as well, it’s not unsurprising that this disruption to their “normal” schedule would make them complain about how difficult it is. ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2020, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-history-did-raising-a-newborn-begin-to-be-seen-as-grueling/846866/19 "2020-01-24T17:29:20Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > As evidenced in the whole concept of the wetnurse. Those quotes take it for granted that it takes the nursing of multiple women to raise a single child… and yet, all of those wetnurses are nursing a child of their own in addition to the wealthy kid. How were the nurses’ children supposed to survive? I thought that wetnurses were generally mothers whose own children had been weaned or whose children had died (which was common enough in those difficult days). But I could well be wrong about this. ---
**Author:** ![Heracles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heracles/32/487_2.png) [@Heracles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heracles)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2020, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-history-did-raising-a-newborn-begin-to-be-seen-as-grueling/846866/20 "2020-01-24T19:23:59Z")
> [@Surreal](#): > > Not true. > > [Natural sleep and its seasonal variations in three pre-industrial societies - PubMed](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26480842) (About segmented sleep / wakefulness in the middle of the night in pre-industrial societies.) That’s an interesting study. [This article](https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16964783) talks about the studies and the book that asserted that sleep was segmented in those societies. (I don’t care either way, I just wanna get some sleep.) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-history-did-raising-a-newborn-begin-to-be-seen-as-grueling/846866.md?page=2)