Children are real living people, but childhood is a set of ideas about what children are like, what they ought to be like, and how adults should treat them. Over the centuries, these ideas about childhood and childcare have changed enormously.
We often believe that today we know much more than was known in the past about what children are really like, and about the best ways to care for them. Is history a slow progress towards better and better understanding of children and their needs?
Suppose a woman who lived in 1805 could watch children living today. Here are some of the countless things that would amaze her.
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