Infant Care

In today’s society the way we care for infants is very different than in the past. There is more technology that you have to do or buy to be a good parent. There are baby monitors that are very high tech, and many expensive accessories that you can buy your child. There are many views on how to raise a child. The historical manual I found, “The Canadian Mother and Child Manual” published in 1940 by Einest Coutre was about bathing babies. The link to the manual is:http://www.archives.gov.on.ca/english/on-line-exhibits/health-promotion/big/big_23_canadian-mother-inside.aspx Coutre was very strict about how to bath babies, where today we use more of our common sense about how to bath babies. There are many manuals and “how to guides” to care for infants but what one is right? The “right practises” change over time in our society. In my sociology 332 class we are learning about Durkheim’s theories and he states that “social facts or norms” change over time. What is view right in one point in time is now viewed wrong now. Like for instance wet nursing. Wet nursing was viewed normal back in the 18^th-19^th, but now it is viewed weird.