The Meaning of Fear. Emotional Standards for Children in the Netherlands, 1850–1950: Was There a Western Transformation?

• Published in: Journal of social history Vol. 34; no. 2; pp. 369 - 391
• Main Author: Bakker, Nelleke
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Oxford University Press 22.12.2000; George Mason University; University of California Press Books Division
• Subjects: Adolescent; Anxiety; Calvinism; Changes; Child; Child care; Child psychology; Child Reactive Disorders - etiology; Child Reactive Disorders - history; Child rearing; Child Rearing - ethnology; Child Rearing - history; Child Rearing - psychology; Child Rearing - trends; Child, Preschool; Childhood; Childhood fear; Childrearing Practices; Children; Children & youth; Cognitive Development; Cultural Change; Culture; Dutch language; Emotions; Fear; Fear & phobias; Fear - classification; Fear - psychology; Fear in children; Handbooks; History; History, 19th Century; History, 20th Century; Humans; Infant; Literature; Manuals as Topic; Mothers; Netherlands; Parenting - ethnology; Parenting - history; Parenting - psychology; Parenting - trends; Parents; Parents & parenting; Parents - education; Parents - psychology; Psychological aspects; Social Change; Social History; United States; United States of America; Western Society; World War I; United States; Netherlands
• ISSN: 0022-4529; 1527-1897
• DOI: 10.1353/jsh.2000.0131

This essay considers the changes in standards for children's fear and for ways of handling it in Dutch parental guidance literature between 1850 and 1950. Stearns and Haggerty's hypothesis about a Western transformation of fear from an avoidable and relatively unimportant emotion to fear as a normal aspect of a child's mental life, inspired by the American case, is put to the test of comparison. First, an outline of Dutch social history is given, focusing on those processes that are supposed to have acted as determinants of the transition: urbanization, secularization, and a smaller family size. Next, the essay discusses fear as subject of the Dutch parental guidance literature. As in the United States since the 1920s fear changed from a relatively unimportant to a major topic in child-rearing literature. It turned into a fully normal and accepted childhood emotion, which deserved parental respect and compassion. However, unlike in the United States, the same social processes cannot have caused this transition, as they did not occur or did not occur nationwide in the Netherlands at the time. The author draws the conclusion that the cultural shock brought about by World War 1 and its intellectual aftermath has caused the transition.