

The Worst (and Weirdest) Parenting Advice From Every Decade Since the 1900s

From infant lard baths and boric acid nipple treatments, we've come a long way as mothers.

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Moms, especially new ones, are put in a terrible position: They're expected to automatically know everything there is to know about how to be a perfect parent (you are a woman, aren't you?) while simultaneously being forced to accept advice from everyone from their doctor to the mailman. It can feel overwhelming, leaving mothers to wonder who to believe. And nowhere is that more true than when it comes to "tried and true" advice passed down through the generations. While it's hard to say what the best advice is, it's not too hard to recognize bad advice.

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1900s: Use Acid as Nipple Cleanser

The Mother and Her Child is, it must be said, a pretty solid parenting book, especially when you consider the era in which Drs. Lena and William Saddler wrote it. It's full of sage advice and charming children who begin every sentence with "Oh, darling mother!" But then there's their advice on nursing. They start by saying that before feeding, mothers should "wash their nipples with soap and water" and then "rinse in boracic acid." And if, for some reason, the thought of dousing her nips in acid made the mother a tad irritable, that was a problem, too. "If the mother worries greatly, or thoughtlessly gets very angry just before the nursing hour [...] it raises the blood pressure of the mother and often produces not only colic in the babe, but many times throws him into severe convulsions." Pretty sure that's not how colic — or convulsions! — work.  

RELATED: 21 Rookie Parenting Mistakes

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1910s: A Held Baby Is a Spoiled Baby

New mothers were told to ignore their most fundamental instincts and avoid holding their infant at all unless they were feeding the baby, changing a diaper, or otherwise providing the very basic care. The 1911 tome A Handbook of Obstetric Nursing warned mothers that those who "foolishly spoil" their little darlings would see them grow into "little tyrants." There does appear to be a tyrant in this scenario, but it's pretty clear it's not the baby who just wants a snuggle.  

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1920s: Ignoring Your Child Is the Way to Build Good, Strong Character

Behaviorist John Watson took the warning that holding babies too much would spoil them to the next level by advising mothers to be "sensible" in how they interact with their babies. "Never hug and kiss them or let them sit on your lap. Shake hands with them in the morning. Give them a pat on the head if they have made an extraordinary good job of a difficult task," he wrote in Psychological Care of the Infant and Child. "If you must, kiss them once on the forehead when they say goodnight." If you MUST? Anyone who would instruct loving mothers to count and ration their kisses probably hasn't known many mothers.

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1930s: Put Your Baby In a Cage

Fresh air is good for a growing baby, but what's a poor mother to do if she lives in a high-rise tenement and has no garden? Build a metal cage, put your baby in it, and then hang it precariously out the window, of course! In 1937, well-meaning mothers could acquire just such a contraption. Even better, according to the patent for one such device, she could order the cage with curtains so she could leave the poor baby out there all night without having to worry about a draft in the home (or seeing her child's stricken face). How thoughtful?  

RELATED: 18 Crucial Pieces of Advice from Older Moms to New Moms

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1940s: Stop Coddling Boys

Author Philip Wylie was not messing around, which was clear enough from the title of his book Generation of Vipers. He started his scathing critique of 1940s American culture by going right to the source of the problem: "Middle-aged overweight mothers" who were raising namby-pamby princes ill-suited to the rigors of real life, and he called American boys "the most prissy people on earth." This was happening, he explained — nonsensically — because mothers simply didn't have enough household work. "Hitherto, mom has been so busy raising a large family, keeping house, doing the chores, and fabricating everything in every home except the floor and the walls that she was rarely a problem to her family or to her equally busy friends, and never one to herself. Usually, until very recently, mom folded up and died of hard work somewhere in the middle of her life." You hear that, moms? Craft like your life depends on it or your sons will grow up to be wusses! 

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1950s: Bathe Your Baby Three Times a Day

In the late 1800s, mothers were counseled to roll their babies in lard every day, so perhaps it makes sense that half a century later, the pendulum had swung the opposite direction. In a 1959 "Do's and Dont's of Childcare" article from Best Wishes magazine, mothers were advised to "bathe the baby every day [...] but in hot weather two or three times a day." Cleanliness was an ongoing theme — mothers were also told to never let anyone kiss their baby, but if it was absolutely going to happen, to hold the baby so the kiss "lands only on the back of the baby's neck."

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1960s: Start Solid Foods At 2 Days Old

When to start your baby on solid foods is a hot topic among mothers of all eras but Walter Sackett, M.D., claimed to have settled the debate in his book Bringing Up Babies. His verdict? Two days old. What solid food do you feed a newborn? "Cereal with the consistency of putty," which was to be given before any of that terrible breastmilk. By 2 weeks, babies could have vegetables, by 3 months they could eat bacon and eggs, and by 6 months they should start with a daily coffee, according to the doctor. He also advised strongly against middle-of-the-night feedings, even for newborns, and told mothers to "avoid the temptation" to pick up their baby and cuddle him if he cries for food.  

RELATED: 5 Things You Shouldn't Feed Your Kids

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1970s: Send Your Daughter to Charm School

Many parents sent their young girls to get educated in all things feminine at the Sears Discovery Charm School during the '60s and '70s. The school promised to turn awkward daughters into elegant young women by studying subjects that would help each girl uncover their unique "looks, movement, speaking, and personality." Sounds pretty great so far. Unfortunately, the options of classes presented were a bit… limiting. According to the 1972 pamphlet, a girl could select from "Exercise, Diet, Voice/Speech, Modeling, Skin Care/Grooming, Make-up, Fashion, and Manners." Oh, and there was a special bonus class: "Selecting Teen Fashions." Great, glad we got all the bases covered then.  

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1980s: Babies Sleep Best On Their Stomachs

"For the first two months or so, the safest way for babies to sleep is on their fronts, head to one side, or else curled up on one side. Then if they are sick there is no chance that they will choke," wrote Nancy Kohner in her 1984 Pregnancy Book. And she wasn't a lone outlier —in the '70's and '80's it was widely thought that front sleeping was safestfor infants. Doctors also said front-sleeping would prevent scoliosis, make babies more contented, prevent mental illness, help with colic, and keep them from wakening themselves with flailing limbs. Unfortunately (and if you're already shuddering then you know what comes next) stomach sleeping coincided with a massive rise in Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. By 1992 the official recommendationof the American Pediatric Association had flipped (literally) to back sleeping all the time, every time, and SIDS deaths dropped by 50 percent.

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1990's: Time Outs Should Be Super Long

The concept of "time out" as a discipline tool has been around as long as parents have needed some space from their children, but John Rosemond's definition in his 1994 book To Spank or Not to Spank went way beyond the naughty chair… all the way to the bathroom. Speaking of disciplining a defiant 6-year-old, he writes, "The first time you pop his rear end [...] then follow up with 30 minutes confinement in the downstairs bathroom." Why lock him in the bathroom? Because "it's isolated and boring." Clearly, this was written in the era before smartphones! But, seriously, leaving a first-grader alone in a bathroom for a half hour is just begging for all your shampoo to be emptied and your toothbrush to end up as a boat in the toilet. And if you don't want to leave your little in the bathroom, he says it's fine to send a child over 42 months to their room — for the rest of the day.

RELATED: 10 of the Grossest Things Your Kids Touch Every Day

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2000s: Beat Your Baby With a Rubber Hose

Michael Pearl is a Tennessee preacher who co-authored a book with his wife titled To Train Up a Child. A parent following Pearl's advice is instructed to think of their children as "stubborn mules" and to beat the "selfish compulsions" out of them with wooden spoons or "flexible tubing." That on its own is horrifying, but it gets even worse when you discover he advises this tactic for infants of just 6 months old. Unsurprisingly, his advice has been allegedly linked to the deaths of 3 children by abuse and neglect. This seems like a rule that shouldn't have to be said, but for heaven's sake, don't beat up babies (or a child of any age, for that matter)!

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2010s: Only Sickos Kiss Their Kid On the Lips

You'd think we'd have this parenting thing down pat by now, but, alas, bad advice still abounds. Take this doctor's advice to moms of babies and toddlers: Dr Charlotte Reznick, author of The Power of Your Child's Imagination: How to Transform Stress and Anxiety Into Joy and Success, warns that because the mouth is an erogenous zone which "can be stimulating," parents should avoid kissing their kids on the lips. "It might cause a child to think, 'If mommy kisses daddy on the mouth and vice versa, what does that mean, when I, a little girl or boy, kiss my parents on the mouth?''" Counterpoint: A sweet peck on the lips is an innocent way mothers show love to their children and people who make it more than that are the gross ones.

RELATED: These Are the Top Parenting Trends for 2017

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