Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún recorded this text in the mid-16th century as part of an effort to gather information about native Aztec history and customs. Sahagún went to Mexico in 1529 as one of the first missionaries assigned to the newly conquered territory of New Spain. He remained there until his death, preaching and instructing youth in Spanish, Latin, science, religion, and music. He acquired mastery of the Aztec language and collected information to help missionaries and government officials convert the indigenous people to Christianity.

The 12-volume manuscript included text, illustrations, and a grammar of the Aztec language. Completed in 1569, authorities in Spain did not want the work published in New Spain for fear of encouraging the continuation of indigenous practices. It was first published in 1829 as Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España, with an English translation in 1831.

The document illustrates elements in the socialization of boys, whose way of life and culture by the time of Sahagún had been irrevocably altered by Spanish rule. It also illustrates the importance of respect for elders, and the refinements of rhetoric in the language of the Aztecs (Nahua). The advice given to the son reflects the Aztec (Nahua) philosophy of keeping personal balance in earthly life. Moral, psychological, and physical health, were related to well-being, righteousness, and purity. Compare the father's advice about duty, public behavior, and moral responsibility to his son with the mother's advice to her daughter. In what ways does the advice for daughters differ from that of sons?

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The ceramic figurine of an infant in a cradle (also called a cradleboard) was created by the Nahua, or Aztec people of Mexico, between 1350 and 1521 CE. It shows how infants were kept bound in a cradle or carried on a cradleboard, a practice that was common among the indigenous peoples of the Americas. The figurine also shows how the baby would have been bound or swaddled in the cradle. The drawing further illuminates the way in which the cradle was used, and may illustrate a ceremony of placing the child in the cradle that took place some days after the birth of the child. The illustration is from the work collected in the Nahua language by Bernardino de Sahagún (1500-1590 CE), a Church official sent by the Spanish to Mexico in 1529. Sahagún collected information about Aztec language, rituals, values, and childrearing from a select group of native informants. It is the only source of its kind of Aztec customs and modes of thought. Also compiled by Sahagún was a narrative and representations of the Spanish conquest. The work was sent to Spain where it was not published until 1829 or translated until 1831. It was called The Florentine Codex because the manuscript was found in that city; it had been suppressed in Spain after the death of Sahagún.

Among the normative verses of the Qur'an dealing with family life and women's legal rights in marriage, this verse refers to the recommended term of two years for breastfeeding. It is a recommendation rather than a legal requirement upon the woman, but it also protects the woman's right to sustenance and support during this period as an obligation upon the husband or his heirs, in case of his death. The text imposes no compulsion upon the woman to breastfeed her child, but allows that she may require the husband to pay compensation to a wet nurse, or to wean the infant by mutual consent between husband and wife before the end of two years. The verse is from the Qur'an, the holy book of Islam, which Muslims believe was revealed to Prophet Muhammad during the 23-year period prior to 632 CE, when he died. The translation, or explanation of the meaning, is by Marmaduke William Pickthall (1875-1936), the first native speaker of English to translate the Qur'an.

This girl is from a village in the Mossi country of Burkina Faso (a landlocked country in West Africa). The doll she is holding is a traditional wooden figurine made from one piece of wood standing on a broader base. The doll displays the characteristics of an adult woman, with suggestions of facial features and elaborate hairstyles, and usually with mature female breasts that represent the fulfillment of motherhood. Scarification [scarring] patterns on the body that traditionally mark passage to adulthood are also represented by carved patterns. Mossi dolls are typically carved by male blacksmiths and are given to girls for play. The child calls it biiga ("child"), and carries the doll about with her, tucking it into the waistband of her skirt, and pretends to feed, wash and groom it. Sometimes it is adorned with beads, cowrie shells, dressed with pieces of leather or cloth, and the girl might bring it wildflowers. In the market, a girl may place her doll on the edge of a merchant's mat and expect to receive a small sample of the wares—a few peanuts, a pastry, or a piece of fruit.

Mossi dolls are also the focus of rituals associated with motherhood. When a young girl displays her doll to older women, they may respond, "May God give you many children." At festivals, if a child gives her doll to an adult to hold, it is customary to give the child a small present when giving the doll back. Other rituals include the use of dolls to ensure fertility in marriage (accomplished by giving the doll a name). Handling the doll with care is seen as auspicious for childbearing and survival of children. Before the marriage ceremony, a young woman carries the doll on her back to the market, and a few days after marriage, she is given some straw in place of the doll and asked which sex her first child will be. Mossi dolls are passed down through female generations, and before a woman gives birth, she washes the doll she played with in childhood before washing her own baby. Similarly, the first drops of milk are given to the doll, and it is again carried on the mother's back before the infant is placed there for the first time. According to reports culled by anthropologists, these rituals were to ensure that the newborn infant's soul enters the world of its parents, called yisa biiga, or "to call the child," and "to prevent the child from returning," or gidga ti da biiga lebera me, to the world of the ancestral spirits. Women who remain childless after a few years of marriage use the dolls for votive purposes, adorning them with cowry shells and carrying them everywhere while expressing their wish for a child.1

Handwoven by a woman in Nigeria, this traditional Yoruba cloth that is tied around the mother’s waist is used as a baby carrier. The baby sits snugly against her mother’s back; her legs wrap around her mother’s waist. The mother’s hands remain free to work or carry other things. The Yoruba wrapper measures 72 inches (183 cm) long and 16 inches (41 cm) wide. Hand loomed of cotton, the ends are plain-woven with a fringed ending, but at the center where the baby sits, the carrier is embellished with thick cut-pile weaving which provides warmth, absorbency, and decoration. An additional, modern embellishment is the use of lurex—a shiny, synthetic thread—interwoven with the cotton. This piece is from the collection of Christopher D. Roy, a scholar and expert on the material culture of West Africa. The piece was made during the 20th century. This method of transporting a baby can be compared with other methods elsewhere in the world and from different periods. Different methods of carrying babies reflect varied meanings about the relation between mother and child, the period of carrying infants, and the mothers' daily work. Opinions also differ on the benefit or harm in constraining infants in wrappers and carriages for the sake of mothers and the needs of family, kin and community.

Strongly influencing the invention of Robert J. Clay's mechanized "Creeping Baby Doll" in 1871, were changing notions of childhood that fostered children's development.

Allowing babies to crawl on all fours as did Clay's doll reflected recent changes in childrearing practices. In Early Modern Europe and in early America, the association between crawling babies and the insane and animals, led parents to require babies to stand and walk as soon as they were able. Greater understanding of children's development by the early 19th century led parents to stash the seat-less "standing stool" that had been used for generations. Although in 1835, Amira Phelps, a mother and a female educator, asserted in her diary that she would not let her son "learn to creep," by the time he was able to she accepted crawling as "nature's way."

As notions of childhood continued to change in the years after the Civil War, American men like Robert J. Clay applied their ingenuity to the invention of toys and the development of an American industry. Competing against the Europeans whose dolls flooded the American market, male inventor/businessmen applied machine technology to doll designs. Rather than patent the entire doll as Clay did, most inventors patented a single device (e.g., joints).

Although Clay claimed in his patent that the Creeping Baby Doll would be a "very amusing toy," mechanical dolls disturbed more than delighted consumers. Enoch Rice Morrison's top heavy "Autoperipatetikos" dolls often fell flat on their faces and Edison's "Talking Dolls" had speech problems. Seeking to improve upon Clay's prototype, his employer, Robert Pemberton Clarke, patented an "Improved Creeping Baby Doll."

Patent drawings and descriptions of inventions provide more than just technical information: these sources are useful for understanding the construction of dolls and childhood.

Published in 1858, Der Struwwelpeter (Shaggy Peter) is a German children's book first published anonymously under a different title in 1845 by Heinrich Hoffman. Hoffman, a Frankfurt physician and father, wrote the book after realizing that there were none he wanted to buy for his 3-year-old son for Christmas. The first English translation was published in 1848. While living in Berlin with his family in 1891, Mark Twain translated the book he gave to his three daughters for Christmas. According to one, her father had been motivated by his close identification with the children in Der Struwwelpter. Twain's American version, Slovenly Peter, was published in 1935.1

The 10 cautionary tales told in rhyme are accompanied by vivid illustrations of boys and girls in nightmarish scenarios. The cartoon-like illustrations depict the dire consequences of such disobedient and unwise behavior as: poor hygiene, cruelty, playing with matches, bullying, thumb sucking, eating poorly, fidgeting at the table, and not paying attention while walking. While many German parents today find the tales disturbing, those who raised their children during the early decades of the 20th century found them useful for childrearing. Parents' mention of a specific character in Der Struwwelpeter kids knew well served as short-hand criticism of objectionable behavior.

What happens to disobedient children who suck their thumbs when told not to is illustrated in four panels. In the third one, Conrad's thumbs are about to be cut off by the tailor because he did not listen to his mother warning him not to suck his thumbs while she went out.

Students might analyze the text as well as the images in regard to issues of gender and race. (For bullying a boy of color the bullies are dipped in black ink.) The book could also be compared to other proscriptive stories from different periods, nationalities, and cultures. Another rich avenue for research would be to examine children's varied reactions to Der Stuvwwelpeter.

A version of the American translation, Struwwelpeter: Merry Tales and Funny Pictures, is available on The Project Gutenberg EBook.

This postcard, from the early 20th century, shows a group of women and children, most likely belonging to the Mapuche people. The Mapuche occupied a large area in the cone of South America, the territory of the current nations of Chile and Argentina. Indigenous American tribes were popular subjects for postcards around the turn of the 20th century, and a large subgroup of postcards portrayed babies in cradleboards—called "papooses."

One of the women is holding a cradleboard upright in front of her, and another is holding a young girl by the hand. The use of cradleboards was widespread among indigenous American ethnic and tribal groups. With variations in the shape of the board, the use of fabrics and lacings to bind the child onto the board, and the arrangement of the protective hoods, cradleboards display remarkable uniformity across North and South America. One postcard legend described this variation on the worldwide practice of swaddling infants: "the Cradle of the Indian children consists of a board made of slats, with hood of same material or wicker. the youngster being bound with bands there to uncomfortable in appearance yet the children seem fat and happy. they are usually carried on their mothers back wrapped in a bright shawl.[sic]"

The postcards—some with black-and-white or color-retouched photographs, and others as color lithographs—often featured captions intended to be humorous, such as "An Embryonic Warrior" or "Snug as a Bug in a Rug." One postcard of a Navaho papoose from the popular publisher Fred Harvey contained a printed legend commenting on indigenous American childrearing practices: "The Navaho child is seldom punished for the simple reason that he seldom requires it. There appears to be a bond of sympathy and love between parent and child which is very strong during the minority of the child, but strange to say the children do not always love and protect their parents when the latter become old and infirm."

These images of swaddled infants come from a series of 10 glazed terra cotta bas-reliefs known as the "bambini." Andrea della Robbia sculpted them between 1463 and 1466 to adorn the Ospedale degli Innocenti, or Foundling Hospital, in Florence, Italy. The images show a sequence of childhood stages, from a tightly swaddled newborn to a child liberated from bindings that gradually loosen and fall aside. The images reflect the practice of confining infants’ bodies in tightly wound strips of cloth, which can be found on images of infants in many world regions and cultures.

The Silk Guild of Florence, responsible for foundling care in Florence starting in 1294, commissioned architect Filippo Brunelleschi to build a sanctuary for foundlings in 1419. The building featured a door—la routa—with a rotating stone platform where individuals could anonymously leave infants for charitable foster care until 1875. The Ospedale degli Innocenti as an institution provided continuous care for infants and children for more than five centuries. The image of the liberated child in the 2nd roundel from the left has been used as the official insignia of the American Association of Pediatrics since 1955.

The girl in the photograph is from the Asante peoples in Ghana. She is holding a purple plastic baby doll of a type that is frequently found in markets in Ghana. The doll is both imported from Taiwan and made domestically in Ghana. The modern plastic doll is based on an older, traditional form of wooden figurine manufactured by village blacksmiths to represent the adult, female figure. Girls play with these dolls they call biiga ("child"), by caring for them, dressing and feeding them, and sometimes tucking them into the waistbands of their skirts just as women carry infants in cloth wrappers wrapped around their torsos. There are significant rituals associated with girls, including the belief that proper care for the doll can ensure fertility and survival of children. Girls also carry the dolls for display when they go among adults, and might expect a token present when, for example, they place their doll on the ground in front of a merchant in the market. Wealthier families and those in the towns have come to consider the plastic dolls to be more prestigious than the traditional wooden ones. Unlike the Mossi dolls, however, the plastic versions are shaped like a girl rather than a woman, and have generally Caucasian features and western dress.