Pain in childbirth

I recently read a piece from a book written by J. Hausinger and published in 1801. It made quite clear to me how children were taught in those times and how the belief of a lot of pain and misery came to be.

Below I will quote.

Boy: Where do children come from, dear tutor?
Tutor: They grow in their mother's body. When they have gotten so large that there is no more room for them, the mother must push them out, something like what we do when we have eaten a lot and then go to the privy. But it hurts the mother very much.
Boy: And then the baby is born?
Tutor: Yes.
Boy: But how does the baby get into the mother's body?
Tutor: That we don't know; we only know that it grows there.
Boy: That's very strange.
Tutor: No, not at all.--Look at that whole forest that has grown over there. No one is surprised by this because everyone knows that trees grow out of the earth. In the same way, no reasonable person is surprised that a baby grows in its mother's body. For this has been so as long as people have been on earth.
Boy: And do midwives have to be there when a baby is born?
Tutor: Yes, because the mothers are in such pain that they can't take care of themselves all alone. Since not all women are so hardhearted and fearless that they can be around people who must undergo so much pain, there are women in every town who are paid to stay with the mothers until the pain has passed. They are like the women who prepare dead bodies for burial; washing the dead or undressing and dressing them are also tasks not to everyone's liking which people therefore perform for money.
Boy: I would like to be there sometime when a baby is born.
Tutor: If you want an idea of the pain and distress mothers experience, you don't need to go and see a baby being born; one doesn't have that chance because mothers do not know themselves at what moment the pains will begin. Instead, I will take you to Dr. R. when he is about to amputate a patient's leg or remove a stone from someone's body. Those people wail and scream just like mothers giving birth.....
Boy: My mother told me not long ago that the midwife can tell right away whether the baby is a boy or a girl. How does the midwife know?
Tutor: I will tell you. Boys are much more broad-shouldered and large-boned than girls; but primarily, boys' hands and feet are always broader and coarser than girls' hands and feet. For example, you need only look at the hand of your sister, who is nearly a year and a half older than you; your hand is much broader than hrs, and your fingers are thicker and fleshier. That makes them look shorter too, although they are not.

This "knowledge" must be quite frightening to little boys and girls.
The way people were messing with childrens' minds is frightening to me. Its such an insult to childrens' intelligence. And of course this makes it possible to manipulate.
Very sad how children were treated.
And no wonder people were frightened of birth and no wonder women were having lots of pain in childbirth, they were made to believe it was that way and no other way. Very very sad.

Cherry on the pie from nogreaterjoy

The child has no social consciousness, so he does whatever he feels like. Dumping it is not a great offense for a six-month-old, but he will not always be six months old, and it won’t be cute for long. It will make you downright mad when he is three years old and flings a whole plate of food into your lap.

So we watch him, knowing his propensity to selfish compulsion. When he seizes his bowl with intentions of dumping it, swat the offending hand with a little instrument (light wooden spoon, rubber spatula, flexible tubing less than a quarter inch in diameter, or any instrument that will cause an unpleasant sting without leaving any marks). As you swat the offending hand, say “No” in a normal commanding voice. The tone is more important than the word―not angry―but decisive. Children understand the temperament in your tone before they are born, and will recognize it. This swat is not punishment. Probably, it will not even cause the little guy to cry. He will be shocked and stop any action in which he is engaged. Explain to him that he is not to throw his food onto the floor. If he again makes an attempt, swat his hand again and say, no. The third time is the charm. He now knows that “No” uttered in a commanding tone, is something serious. He will not try that stunt again—at least not for this meal.

I find the above horrible. The one who the child expects to love and cherish him is hurting him, if not physically, at least mentally, that is just plain abusive.
I cannot understand people recommending parenting like that.

Nogreaterjoy

Recently someone pointed me to the website nogreaterjoy.org as this has "great" insights on parenting the biblical way.
I did go there and read. I am totally saddened by the way children are viewed there. Its about child training. Child training is very odd to me, it doesn't make a child a human, it seems to degrade them to a robot ?? or pet that has to immediately obey, in stead of being a more complex human being.
I have been reading this article, its in the BABIES section:
http://www.nogreaterjoy.org/articles/child-training/babies/view/archive/2000/march/01/how-early-should-i-start-training/
I will quote a few things below:

The first time an infant pulls your hair, if you pull his, he will never be a hair-puller.

I find the above very sad, consider that babies do this out of reflex to hold on to their parent. They do not want to hurt, so what is the use in hurting a child that is merely trying to hold on to their parent. They do this from birth.

If a child cries out in loneliness and is rewarded by being picked up, you have trained him to repeat the crying any time he wants to control the adults in his life.

Children do not want to control the adults life. Young babies are not able to be manipulative, that is something that they learn much much later in life.
Babies should even leave their parents arms, and young children need to have a lot of love and attention. Why would anyone want to deliberately leave a child lonely anyway, it doesn't make any sense to me.

When a child is told no, and he responds with temper, if the parents compromise and give over just one-inch to the child’s demands, they have trained him to throw fits. It will become a life-long habit, begun at three months.

Three months *shock*. A baby of 3 months doesn't understand any of this and will just feel abandoned by the people who are supposed to love him/her.
This can give life-long scars.

What you don’t do as a parent is as influential as what you do. If you permit a child to indulge in a pleasurable act several times, with no negative consequences, then he will develop a preference and a habit. If you give the kid an old set of car keys to play with, you have trained him to abscond with your keys. If you allow a child to snatch food from your hand, you have trained him to have crude table manners. If you allow him to get up after you have put him down to sleep, you have trained him to ignore your commands and to make his own decisions about his sleeping habits.

This is an article that talks about babies and toddlers. Since when can a child not indulge in a pleasurable act? Since when is it wrong to share your food with your child?
And how can we expect young children to just stay in bed alone when they are that young?
That is a very unsafe feeling for little ones. They do not understand house, doors, locks and all that stuff yet the way we rationally do. They are alone, this is unsafe, they feel scared.

A bully on one side and a whining tattletale on the other are social misfits.

Misfits? What language to use to describe a child.

Parents are failing to communicate moral convictions to their children. One reason they fail is that they start too late. Parents do not start trying to train their children until they are convinced they can receive instruction, by which time children are already confirmed in carnality, addicted to the pleasures of hedonism. I am talking about children two and three years old. Parents find it difficult to believe that their very young children are capable of early training.

PARDON?!?

If a ten-month-old child, capable of picking up his own socks, sits and watches his mother pick them up, he is being mistrained—trained to be lazy.

Sick!

This is only one article that I have been reading. There will no doubt come more as I read more on this website. The person pointing it out to me was someone reacting to me putting up a link to an article by Barbara Rogers on a forum.