Parenting in England, 1760-1830 : emotion, identity, and generation

Parenting in England is the first study of the world of parenting in late Georgian England. The author, Joanne Bailey, traces ideas about parenthood in a Christian society that was responding to new cultural trends of sensibility, romanticism and domesticity, along with Enlightenment ideas about childhood and self. All these shaped how people, from the poor to the genteel, thought about themselves as parents, and remembered their own parents. With meticulous attention to detail, Bailey illuminates the range of intense emotions provoked by parenthood by investigating a rich array of sources from memoirs and correspondence, to advice literature, fiction, and court records, to prints, engravings, and ballads. Parenting was also a profoundly embodied experience, and the book captures the effort, labour, and hard work it entailed. Such parental investment meant that the experience was fundamental to the forging of national, familial, and personal identities. It also needed more than two parents and this book uncovers the hitherto hidden world of shared parenting. At all levels of society, household and kinship ties were drawn upon to lighten the labours of parenting. By revealing these emotional and material parental worlds, what emerges is the centrality of parenthood to mental and physical well-being, reputation, public and personal identities, and to transmitting prized values across generations. Yet being a parent was a contingent experience adapting from hour to hour, year to year, and child to child. It was at once precarious, as children and parents succumbed to fatal diseases and accidents, yet it was also enduring because parent-child relationships were not ended by death: lost children and parents lived on in memory. __Parenting in England__With meticulous attention to detail, Bailey illuminates the range of intense emotions provoked by parenthood by investigating a rich array of sources from memoirs and correspondence, to advice literature, fiction, and court records, to prints, engravings, and ballads. Parenting was also a profoundly embodied experience, and the book captures the effort, labour, and hard work it entailed. Such parental investment meant that the experience was fundamental to the forging of national, familial, and personal identities. It also needed more than two parents and this book uncovers the hitherto hidden world of shared parenting. At all levels of society, household and kinship ties were drawn upon to lighten the labours of parenting.By revealing these emotional and material parental worlds, what emerges is the centrality of parenthood to mental and physical well-being, reputation, public and personal identities, and to transmitting prized values across generations. Yet being a parent was a contingent experience adapting from hour to hour, year to year, and child to child. It was at once precarious, as children and parents succumbed to fatal diseases and accidents, yet it was also enduring because parent-child relationships were not ended by death: lost children and parents lived on in memory. Dedication 6 Preface 8 Acknowledgements 10 Contents 12 List of Figures 13 Abbreviations 15 Notes to the Reader 16 Introduction 18 PART I. PARENTING AND PARENTHOOD: IDEALS, REPRESENTATIONS, AND MEANINGS 34 1. The Emotional and Feeling Parent 39 2. The Embodied and Providing Parent 65 3. The Disciplining and Instructive Parent 88 PART II. PARENTING AND PARENTHOOD: PUBLIC, FAMILY, AND PERSONAL IDENTITIES 112 4. Parenthood and Public Identity: Symbolic Parents 118 5. Family Identity: Parentage, Parents, and Being Parented 142 6. Selfhood and Being a Parent: Cultural Conventions, Tensions, and Complexities 161 PART III. GENERATIONS: TRANSMITTED VALUES, SHARED ENDEAVOURS, AND EVOLVING RELATIONSHIPS 184 7. Transferring Family Values 191 8. Shared Parenting 216 9. Changing Relationships 239 Conclusion 262 Appendix 270 Bibliography 272 Index 292 A Study Of The World Of Parenting In Late Georgian England. Based On Extensive And Wide-ranging Sources From Memoirs And Correspondence, To Fiction, Advice Guides, And Engravings Bailey Uncovers How People, From The Poor To The Rich, Thought About Themselves As Parents And Remembered Their Own Parents. Joanne Bailey. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [255]-274) And Index. The first study of the world of parenting in late Georgian England. Based on extensive and wide-ranging sources from memoirs and correspondence, to fiction, advice guides, and engravings, Bailey uncovers how people, from the poor to the rich, thought about themselves as parents and remembered their own parents.