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(1997). Childbearing and female bonding in early modern England. Social History: Vol. 22, No. 3, pp. 286-306.

The history of childhood has been dominated by a few main issues: whether or not there was a concept of childhood in the past; the amount of affection and intimacy between parents and children in the past; the severity of the discipline imposed on children in the past. One group of historians claims that the domestic, nuclear, child-centered family emerged gradually in the eighteenth century; the other that parent-child relations throughout history can be characterized by continuity rather than change.There seems little hope of reconciling the protagonists in the debate. We need to begin our study of past childhood afresh, attempting to discern not the existence of otherwise of concepts of love or childhood, but rather how parents viewed their role and what it was they wished to achieve as they nurtured their children from infancy to adulthood.All societies face similar problems in bringing up their young: how to ensure that children will become responsible, productive, mature individuals, fully compatibl...