The Life of Infants and Children in Victorian London :: European Europe History

The Life of Infants and Children in Victorian LondonHome LifeVictorian homes offered children a large intercommunicate of various caregivers built in to the family structure. Each married couple had an aver maturate of six children, but the average household was considerably larger. Rarely would one rein the nuclear family living alone. Only thirty-six per cent of families consisted simply of a set of parents and their children. Extended families were also rare. Only 10 per cent of families had three or more generations under one roof. The average household would more likely be a conglomeration of a nuclear family along with any human body of random outsiders. The stragglers could include any combination of lodgers, distant relatives, apprentices and/or servants.The composition of the home constantly changed older children married or went off to work, while babies were innate(p) and died. Babies and young children were extremely susceptible to illness. In the worst and poorest dis tricts, two out of ten babies died in the first year. One fourth of them would die by age five. Life expectancy varied greatly depending upon the quality of the area in which people lived. In industrial towns, like Liverpool, the average life expectancy was 26 years. In a better area, like Okehampton in Devon, it was fifty-seven years. The national average of England and Wales was forty years at mid century. Therefore as a child grew older, he was likely to lose one or more siblings as well as one or both parents.Children usually enjoyed the service of their mothers presence on a daily basis. The mothers place was considered to be in the home. Common thought dictated that a woman should be available at all times to care for her husband and children. She would supervise the staff, servants and/or nannies, if her family could afford them. The idea of a working mother was considered highly unlawful and thought to result in neglect of husband, children and home. Supposedly, illness o r even death might arise in the children. An absent wife would also puzzle an unhappy and strained relationship with her husband. Reporting on Birmingham, in Chadwicks 1842 Report on Sanitary Conditions, The Committee of Physicians and Surgeons declares thatThe habit of a manufacturing life creation once established in a woman, she continues it and leaves her home and children to the care of a neighbor, or of a hired child, whose services cost her probably as a great deal as she obtains by her labor.