The XX Factor: What women really think.

Traditional Childrearing: Send Them Away Before They Are Adolescents!

Dayo, you write that you were sent away to boarding school at age 14. In that, you had a more traditional upbringing than most Americans.

Contrary to popular opinion, American children now spend far more time living under the same roof with their bio-parents than have most children in Western history. Traditionally—by which I mean, until capitalism separated work from home—children were sent away to live with others somewhere between ages 8 and 14 (at the latest). The aristocracy sent adolescents off to be pages and maids-in-waiting, to get an education in manners. Working folks sent children off to be apprentices (boys) or domestics (girls—although some girls might instead work in laundry, spinning, or weaving). They'd work for about 7 to 10 years, when they'd finally be paid (no weekly wages!), giving them a lump sum that was enough to marry and start a little shop of their own. Working through adolescence was how most girls earned their dowries and boys learned their trade...and how most working women (and aristocrats as well) avoided being their own children's nannies. Adult women ran the house and shop, in partnership with their husbands. Diaper-wiping was the work of teenagers.

That was the system even if you were lucky enough to have two bio-parents who survived until you were an adult. Most lost at least one parent before then, and had to live under a step-parental regime (cf: Cinderella), or, for impoverished gentry, were sent off to be governesses or law clerks.

Which makes me wonder: Is it a healthy system for anyone, parents or children, to keep adolescents home until age 18? But I agree that boarding schools for poor children whose parents are in flux and financial distress might be a good—or at least, a very traditional—idea.