If you're a fan of peculiar history, you won't do better than 19th and early 20th century mothering advice books. They are conglomerations of pseudoscience, unreasonable demands, and authoritative statements without foundation.

At least they seem so now.

In 1878, in The Physical Life of Woman, Dr. George H Napheys cites a published study by child care expert Dr. Henry Kennedy. The study presented evidence that, if you truly wanted your child to maintain health, the baby's sleeping position most always be with the head pointing due north. "There are known to be great electrical currents always coursing in one direction around the globe. In the opinion of Dr. Kennedy there is no doubt that our nervous systems are in some mysterious way connected with this universal agent, as it may be called, electricity."

Articles needed for baby's feeding [The Mother and Her Child] Articles needed for baby's feeding [The Mother and Her Child]

Well, you can't prove they're not, can you? And what would it hurt to play it safe, just in case?

"Pregnant mothers should avoid thinking of ugly people, or those marked by any deformity or disease; avoid injury, fright and disease of any kind." This was written in the 1920s, in a book called Searchlights on Health: The Science of Eugenics, by B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols. It's interesting to note that a remarkable number of parenting manuals from the era used the word "eugenics." This was before it had come to be mean, "something Hitler was really into." To them it had positive connotations, related to increasing the strength and qualities of the next generation, and less to do with stamping out the impurities of mankind for the propagation of the Master Race.

These books were written well into the scientific age, by men who claimed to possess scientifically collected knowledge. It shows how deeply bewildered and susceptible parents were as the world changed around them, and how tightly the old wives' tales still gripped people's minds. Who wanted to be the first to contradict them at the peril of their child?

Still, that sort of counsel represents the more fringe advice of the era. There might have been almost as many people rolling their eyes at it then as now. It was the advice they actually followed that is truly disturbing. So much so that you begin to wonder how anyone survived a 19th century childhood without emerging as a hardened sociopath.

From the day of birth, schedules and strict discipline were of deep importance. This baby was to interfere as little as possible with your life. Affection was to be restricted, with care instructions more fitting a ficus than a child. From 1916's The Mother and her Child by Drs. Lena and William Sadler: "Handle the baby as little as possible. Turn it occasionally from side to side, feed it, change it, keep it warm, and let it alone; crying is absolutely essential to the development of good strong lungs. A baby should cry vigorously several times each day."