Are you fed up of receiving parenting advice fromyour family, friends,or even strangers on the bus? If so you will probably be able to relate to a new book By Tanith Carey in which she outlines some of the worst childcare advice in history from the 1900's onwards. It includes such gems as telling mums never to let their kids paddle in case it gives them backache, and always make babies sleep in hats so their ears don't stick out...and many others..Here are some extracts from Tanith's new book, 'Never Kiss a Man in a Canoe: Words of Wisdom from the Golden Age of Agony Aunts' is available to buy now at Amazon for £5.99
Advice to worried mothers on child-rearing
Do you believe in paddling? I have heard it is bad for children to have their feet in cold water with the sun on their heads.
Paddling is only safe for a short time in warm, shallow water, such as in pools on the sands when the tide is out. A great deal of mischief is done to children’s health every year by paddling as you describe. Kidney troubles, coughs, colds, toothache and neuralgia, diarrhoea and stomach catarrh are frequently brought on by chills to lower limbs while paddling.
Mother and Home 1910
Do you believe that petting a child is bad for it?
Yes, decidedly I do. A child gets very much attached to Mother (or Nurse) who feeds and baths it. It should be the mother’s aim to prevent the child getting too attached to her and fondling the child has the opposite effect. The child who gets all this fondling is always looking for it in everybodyand is miserable without it. The adult who is always recounting his ills and looking for sympathy is the outcome of too much coddling in childhood. That is why psychologists say too much mother-love is harmful.
Modern Woman, 1929
How can I cure my little girl of playing with matches? I know I should not leave them about and I do usually remember. But we have only gas and sometimes I am called away and lay them down.
I should say the best thing you can do is to teach your little girl to use the matches. Show her how to light the gas, making sure to blow the match out afterwards, and do your utmost to impress upon her that matches are for use and not as playthings…the matches will probably lose their fascination as playthings.
Woman’s companion, 1947
