Children as Miniature Adults
Until the mid-eighteenth-century Enlightenment period, childhood as the distinct period we know today did not exist. Rather, children were considered miniature adults. They wore the same style of clothing as adults (Figure 3.1a) and, like adults, their clothes reflected their social 3or economic class. They were expected to behave and carry themselves as any other person, and expectations for their behavior were not modified simply because they were children (Hill, Stremmel, & Fu, 2005; Morrison, 2001). From a very young age, children in wealthy, landed families were groomed and educated by tutors to assume the social, financial, and political roles of their parents. Children of peasants, farmers, and tradesmen, meanwhile, were expected to shoulder an equal burden of work as soon as they possibly could to ensure the survival of the family. After the Enlightenment, childhood gradually began to be seen as a period of immaturity, with expectations for children adjusted accordingly.
