When wearing a hat, it would be suitable etiquette to take it off when going indoors, into a shop or when talking to a lady on the street. They have implemented many laws and provisions. He also . physical punishment could bring salvation to children. The strong gender roles of the 1940s . All rights reserved. Teachers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, family friends, adults in story books they all dished them out. For contemporary children, it may be difficult to imagine kids having fun in the 1950s. It is best write how things were back in the 1950's by just giving examples and the 'rules' which existed, most of which are long forgotten I'm afraid. This Is How Parenting Has Changed Since the 1950s, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), People Who Use These Words May Suffer From Depression. Doors were seldom locked, and suburban parents unofficially watched after each other's children. Though the hickory stick is one of the most common symbols for old-school scholarly discipline, objects such as paddles, canes, straps, and yardsticks were also widely used. Though most 1950s teens were virgins who had been taught marriage before sex, cars began changing their sexual behavior. Richard Stockton is a freelance science and technology writer from Sacramento, California. If disobedient, children were whipped in public and forced to make public confessions at meetings. Under zero tolerance, a student who violated school rules faced mandatory penalties, adopted from the "broken windows" theory of policing. Copyright 2023 Leaf Group Ltd., all rights reserved. How to Write a Character Reference for Child Down the Lane: Children's Manners and Etiquette in the 1950s, Internet FAQ Archives: Scientific Child Rearing. Parents wanted their children to have better lives than they had had and did everything possible to make life "good" for their kids and grow them into successful adults. They helped around the house, wore dresses and skirts, and were taught to be deferential. There was also the crippling Polio virus. In the '50s, teachers and parents thought that punishing children reduced bad behaviour. Physical punishment was a common way of disciplining children in New Zealand. Pranks just got a whole lot easier with these clever and witty texts. Fathers spent even less time with their children in 1965: just 16 minutes a day. They've been forced to shutter over safety hazards. The general thinking was "spare the rod and spoil the child." In 1946 Dr. Spock released the now famous parenting tome, Baby and Child Care, which opens with the line, You know more than you think you do, and reassured parents all over the country that disciplining a child wasnt a matter of following the orders of the status quo. Children are driven from within themselves to grow, explore, experience, learn, and build relationships with other people, the latest edition of Baby and Child Care reads. After the Great Depression and WWII devastation, it was a time when people sought to create a peaceful and prosperous society. Congress passed the Gun-Free Schools Act in 1994, signed by President Bill Clinton. During the 1950s, parents were more trusting, yet less permissive with their children and women took on the primary care-giving activities. Corporal Punishment In School. Thankfully, though, medical advances and reduced social stigma surrounding mental health issues allowed for treatment to become both more focused and more widespread. You would not normally make the first comment other than to ask how a person was, you would sit politely when you had Guests ans wait for the question - and that was usually based around your Schooling! Discipline with respect to children was a major concern within families. However, with a swelling teenage consumer market, jukebox operators, radio stations, and deejays played to their teen listeners' tastes, and record stores stocked up on 45 RPM recordings of Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, and more. When the weather was nice, neighbors gathered in one back yard or another to cook, eat, and chat. Even though the parents of the 50s were trustful when it came to providing independence-oriented freedoms . xhr.open('POST', 'https://www.google-analytics.com/collect', true); Children were expected to be quiet and well-behaved at school. As of 2012, that number had nearly doubledup to 104 minutes. While domestic corporal punishment is illegal in more than 50 countries around the world, thats not the case in America, where 17 states still allow corporal punishment in their public schools. Seeing beauty in the world after illness and personal struggle. Puritan children were taught that by disobeying their parents they were forcing God to condemn them to eternal death, and that strong discipline i.e. "https://ssl." This was commonly said to children when they asked for something which couldnt be afforded. john's musings and reflections and things that confuse him, Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998. Author: maggs224. But in most cases it's true what we say, you would never answer back, you would do as you were told because that's how it worked. However, elders who look back at what life was like in the '50s see a lack of morals in today's society that affects how children grow up. There was a greater consensus that good manners were more important in society back then and this impacted how people disciplined their children. In the past, things were so much worse that its frankly surprising the human race survived as well as it did. "); So, in 1950s family life, there was also a marriage boom, birth rate boom, and housing boom. Usher in the warmer weather with a cute letter board quote that's blooming with fresh spring flair. The science of child rearing was becoming popular at this time and new experts and published theories created a more dynamic, and confusing, environment for parents caught between listening to a pastor or following new child-rearing philosophies many of them spouting conflicting messages about how much permissiveness should be allowed versus how much discipline should be used. But by 2012, dads were clocking an average of 59 minutes of quality time with their kids. Children had to stand up on any occasion when an adult would enter the room, even if that adult was the childs parent. Benjamin Spocks "Baby and Child Care," which was first published in 1946, greatly influenced how children should be raised. As teenagers, they dominated the popular culture of the 1950s and 1960s, buying clothing and records. There were bomb and fallout shelters, and weekly "Duck-and-Cover" drills that required students to duck under their desks and cover their heads in preparation for what seemed to them an inevitable atomic attack. United States Census Bureau: One-Third of Fathers with Working Wives Regularly Care for Their Children, Census Bureau Reports, The Center for Effective Discipline: Spanking: Facts and Fiction, American Psychological Association: The Case Against Spanking. Her articles have appeared in "Pittsburgh Parent Magazine" and the website PBS Parents. Childhood Memories of growing up in the 1950s and 1960s. Many families lived close together, and there were all sorts of group social activities. Children had to say "please" and "thank you," and if they didn't use these words correctly, they would be informed by adults that they were being rude. I think people talked in proverbs a lot more then. . Even in the Medieval era, an age that put heretics on the rack and subjected adulterous women to breast rippers (yes, thats the technical title), physical harm to children was far more controversial than violence towards adults. Students knelt on sharp objects or stood for long periods of time.