Pilgrims and Puritanism Parenting

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Historical Perspective of Puritanism
Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

Puritanism refers to a religious group that believed in personal faith and strictly living within the scriptural standards. The puritans who formed a colony in Massachusetts had migrated from England in 1620. Their beliefs and practices which are cited as being one of the strictest differ from the 21st-century beliefs especially on parenthood among other social and family concepts. Having critically analyzed their day-to-day operations it is quite clear that their way of life does not feature in today’s parenting, perhaps the reason as to why we have a morally decayed society. Therefore apart from being part of long-extinct history, lessons on Puritanism should be included in high school textbooks. The puritan parents were capable and skillful parents whose ideas need to be adapted to some extent by modern parents.

Historical Perspective of Puritanism

Though some of their ideals were backward, the puritans had managed to establish a united socially responsible society. McLaren et al (114) the puritan wives were always submissive to their husbands. This was used as the first lesson of obedience to their children. They were to observe how their mothers who were always second in command gave in to their fathers’ demands. According to McLaren et al (114), puritans had justified why men came first in the family chronology. They argued that the father was named first in the fifth commandment; they went ahead to justify that it was Eve who caused Adam to fall into sin. Further, the woman was created second after Adam.

In the 21st century, women argue with their husbands in the presence of their children thus creating an emotionally imbalanced child. It has been identified through progressive social science researches that these emotionally imbalanced children end up having low self-esteem among other dysfunctional traits. Most of the social misfit children come from broken homes caused by a lack of understanding in the home.

In the puritans, culture children were treated as tertiary in the hierarchy and were in addition sinful. This belief colored the approach to childhood discipline. This was meant to prevent the children from falling into more sinful activities. While the Catholic Church refuted these claims of children being sinful until they attained the age of seven years, the puritans claimed that the sinfulness could be observed when the children were on their mother’s breasts. Parents who did not discipline their children were regarded as evil (McLaren et al 114). This disciplining approach brought about a morally responsible society that did not experience the kind of problems being seen in the twenty-first century as a result of children’s indiscipline.

As compared to today’s parenting, Puritans did not sentimentalize childhood. Even newborn children were potential sinners full of aggressive and willful impulses that needed to be suppressed (Mintz 10). Furthermore, Puritans treated children like adults who needed salvation and induction into the world of work. They did not believe that childhood was a period of leisure and playfulness, deserving overindulgence (Mintz 10). None the less they recognized the importance of constructive play depending on the child’s gender.

This is yet another concept that differs from the present world belief where children can be exposed to a whole day’s play. This has prospered to produce an inactive generation and increased cases of obesity, due to lack of strenuous activities that help in burning the extra calories. On the contrary Puritan children grew up as responsible children.

The earlier belief of English men was that a woman’s first milk was unfit to be breastfed to the newborn; as a result, another lactating mother was given the prerogative of breastfeeding the child. However, it was the Puritans who first rejected this practice citing that if the woman was of bad character there was a possibility of passing on this trait to the newborn. Further as clearly indicated by Mintz (16) the puritans believed that newborns nursed by their mothers were less likely to die in infancy. Apparently, this is the same notion today whereby women are advised to breastfeed their children at least for the first two years. This ensures that the children become healthy and capable of fighting off minor infections that are known to cause mortality death.

In addition, the puritans were enlightened people as they realized that early childhood is life’s formative stage. At this age, the children were equally malleable and thus very easy to inculcate positive characters into them. They trained their children on religious matters as early as possible to avoid the sudden dramatic conversion experience in the modern world.

Nonetheless, though the puritans were great in terms of disciplining their children, some of their ideologies were not acceptable and cannot be adopted into today’s world. For example: not allowing children to dine with their children as a sign of respect. (Grigg 52).

Conclusion

In conclusion, though the puritans lived in the 16th and 17th centuries. Their ideas of disciplining children might come in handy for 21st-century parents who have been unable to control their children. The hand-off mode of raising children is no longer effective. Cases of immorality, drug abuse, and crime have been exacerbated due to a lack of proper parental guidance to their children.

Works Cited

Grigg, John. “British colonial America: People and Perspectives.” California. ABC-CLIO, 2008. Web.

McLaren, Dorothy and Fildes, Valerie.” Women as mothers in pre industrial England: essays in memory of Dorothy McLaren.” London. Routledge, 1990. Web.

Mintz, Steven. “Huck’s Raft: a history of America childhood.” California. Harvard University Press, 2004. Web.

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Pilgrims and Puritanism Parenting

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