Educating Our Children
My oldest child is not quite two-and-a-half, but we are thinking about long-term plans for school. In my social circles, homeschooling is very common, and there is excellent support for it in our state and local area. I also believe in many of the benefits so I expect this is what we will do when the time comes for it.
But whatever system we go with, education starts before schooling. Our boy is definitely getting started on that. He is intensely curious and especially loves any kind of hands-on task. Recently, he helped me repair a small tear in a new-to-us couch, even pulling the needle through on his own! It required a lot of hands-on guidance, and he got bored soon after so I finished the project without him. Still, he did such a great job for a two-year-old. I am impressed with how quickly he masters his fine motor skills. Maybe we are raising a tiny engineer.
(You may also notice that we are squarely within the “clothing optional” stage of toddlerhood — at least when we are at home. He is very enthusiastic about learning how to get clothes on and off by himself.)
In my reading about pre-modern family and domestic life, there is a strong emphasis for children learning this way. Whether or not the children had any kind of formal schooling, at home or elsewhere, they learned important skills from watching their mothers and imitating what they saw. We also know that most societies judged what was “women's work” based on whether it could be safely done while also caring for young children. I find some exceptions, but it's the general rule. I expect that young boys often copied their mothers too, just as much as young girls did, until the boys were old enough to work safely alongside their dads or other male mentors. Our boy would love to help his dad fix cars and use power tools, and is sometimes very mad at me for not allowing this. The biggest tantrum of his entire toddler life was when I wouldn't let him touch the lawn mower while it was in use. It's so hard to be little sometimes!
This is really just my speculation though. I am hoping to have more time to read and review interesting books and historical texts for my dear readers. We shall see.
Meanwhile, I have a house to whip into shape, and a toddler who can now run faster than I can. Wish me luck? I think I will need it.
I think that you are right about what 'women's work' was, and still is, to some extent. Also, what she could do while heavily pregnant (and frequently *also* chasing toddlers, LOL!). Men and women are biologically different, and have different functions within the family structure because of those biological differences, not because of 'patriarchal oppression.' Frankly, it would be oppression to expect a heavily pregnant woman with toddlers hanging on her skirts to go out and plow the fields and cut and haul firewood, among other chores requiring great physical strength. Not that women haven't done those things, in those circumstances, when it was necessary, but that in a properly functioning intact family, it shouldn't be necessary.
As for when little boys transitioned from learning from their mothers to learning from their fathers, I suspect that had a lot to do with how patient their fathers were. Some men (and women, for that matter) are more patient with little beginners and can start earlier. And it would depend on what kind of work was happening that day, too. Milking the gentle old cow, yes. Planting large seeds (peas, beans, corn) in the garden, yes. Falling trees, probably not.
When I was little, we had a bunch of old kitchen chairs in the kitchen that were not in the best of shape. I took each of them apart, re-glued them, and put them back together. I think I’d watched my father do one?
My Mom watched and did give me some encouragement while I did this, but it was just me with a bottle of wood glue and a screw driver. I think I was maybe 7? Guess I shouldn’t be surprised I ended up an engineer.