Childhood in Puritan New England

Childhood in Puritan New England

 

Title: The Primary Materials of History: Childhood in Puritan New England

Pages 24-33

This piece was made to persuade the audience to examine their childhood and compare and contrast it with the way Puritans were raised. Not only would the audience see differences, but it is also meant to have the audience ask questions of themselves and dig further into the Puritan way of life outside of only children. To make the selection easier to read, it was broken up into two different sections: Portraits and Written Evidence.

Portraits

It was really interesting to see portraits of Puritan Children and how they differ from portraits taken today. Obviously, they didn’t have any cameras to use, so artists would paint their likeness. We all like to look nice for our photos, so normally we dress up. Same was true for Puritans. We normally like to have a pleasant expression on our face, such as smiling; however, Puritans wanted their children to specifically not smile. The author even asks us to think about why this would be. I believe it’s because “having fun” was almost considered a sin during this time period for this cultural group. If you were too happy, you were probably sinning and needed to confess. Therefore, in order to portray that you were not sinning, your portrait was taken without a smile on your face. This also might portray that their society wasn’t focused on material happiness but inner, private happiness.

 

Written Evidence

I found it really interesting to read how well the children of this era wrote, some even better than adults I know. Absolutely, this 12 year old writes better than any 12 year old I know. Also, it makes me wonder why he would be writing to his father? They probably live together, so why not just talk to him? Since the subject matter deals with God, he probably did something he wasn’t supposed to do and was therefore forced to write a letter to his father to repent.

The Court Records really surprised me. “If any child[ren] above sixteen years old and of sufficient understanding shall curse or smite their natural father or mother, they shall be put to death, unless it can be sufficiently testified that the parents have been very unchristianly negligent in the education of such children, or so provoked them by extreme and cruel correction that they have been forced thereunto to preserve themselves from death or maiming…” PUT TO DEATH?? For saying something bad about your parents??? I would be killed by now, that’s for sure. I remember there was an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where the crew visited a planet that no matter what law you broke, you were put to death. The planet was insanely happy all the time and had absolutely no crime, which is simply unheard of in human society. So when Wesley Crusher decided he wanted to walk on the grass and had no idea it was a law, he was then sentenced to death. This was the main conflict of this episode and had to be resolved through compromise between the two societies. My guess is that this was the same principal for the Puritans. “If we just threaten death, then they won’t commit the crime.” Seems really harsh for us, but the author said that the sentence was never served, so they must have been doing something right.