By the 1930s, psychology had infiltrated many aspects of Canadian “child
training” literature. Indeed, this period can be characterized by the
quest for “normal”
children and families (Gleason, 1999), and a
shift in the formation of character, to the development of normal personalities
(Gere, 1997). There was also growing interest in all aspects of the psychological
and behavioural development of the pre-school child (Gesell, 1940, vi).10 Literacy
advice to mothers during this time was embedded in the discursive ideal of the
normal family, and connected to a range of state and para-state institutions
that convened around the concept of “mental hygiene.” The mental
hygiene movement sought to define normal or “typical” child behaviour,
which could be expressed as scales or lists to assist professional to in turn
identify, prevent, and remediate “extreme” or “abnormal”
behaviour. The mental hygiene approach to child-raising emphasized the children’s
environment as a key explanatory factor for “many types of inadequacy
and of mental disturbance”
(Blatz & Bott, 1929, p. 252) and thus advice
to parents focused on regulating the home environment to prevent potential “abnormalities”
.
This interest in the home environment as a key factor in child development implied
increased scrutiny of mothering practices, as well as new domestic literacy
roles that drew on discourses of intensive mothering and the normal family.
The mental hygiene approach to “child training”
is exemplified
in William Blatz’s and Helen Bott’s (1928) Parents and the
Pre-School Child. This was considered “the first real text book
in Parent Education”
in Canada (Johnson, 1929, p. 32). Blatz was the
director of the St. George School for Child Study,
which held discussion groups on problems of child-training for middle-class
mothers. The outcomes of these discussions, which were facilitated by Helen
Bott, were interpreted through the lens of mental hygiene and constituted the
main source of data for Parents and the Pre-School Child. The mental hygiene
approach marked a departure from the theories of developmental determinism predominant
in the Nineteenth Century, as discussed in Chapter Four. Blatz and Bott questioned
the doctrine of developmental determinism that held that the “basic patterns
of character are laid down in the first two years of life”
(1929 p. 259).
They argued that such a doctrine promoted the “developmental derby”
(Hardyment, 1995) played by many parents who had picked up the incipient message
that the “earlier development takes place, the better”
(Blatz &
Bott, p. 256). In terms that echo contemporary concerns over the implications
of the “early years last forever”
doctrine (Canadian Institute of
Child Health, 1997), Blatz and Bott observed that “the widespread emphasis
today upon childhood as the great period in the making of the individual is
causing a blight of pessimism in the minds of those who have passed well beyond
that period”
(Blatz & Bott, 1929, p. 260). They wondered if the belief
among the general population that childhood was a determinant phase in the human
life cycle did not in itself constitute a controlling environmental factor,
a self-fulfilling prophecy as it were, with detrimental consequences for the
course of action available to individuals as they grew older (Blatz and Blott,
1929, p. 261).
10 The term “pre-school” was used to describe children between the ages of zero to six. More recently, the term has come to be associated with children ages 3-5 who attend part-time pre-school programs. The term “early years” currently most commonly describes the life stage of children aged 0-6