Hacking the Good Days...
Just came back from a special talk at the Foundling Museum that really blew my mind away.
I have always been very interested in the attachment theory, in terms of the way we bonded as children affects the way we relate to others as we grow up. I guess it’s all a bit common sense; you can’t look forward without looking back.
This talk was by the elegant and graceful Dr Alysa Levene, ‘Bonds of love and affection at the London Foundling Hospital in the eighteenth-century‘.
Over 18,000 babies and young children were left at the Foundling Hospital between its opening in 1741 and the end of the eighteenth century. We know almost nothing about the emotional experiences of any of them. However, we can tease out something of the emotional bonds that existed between these children and their parents by examining the letters and tokens left with them. Very few of these children were ever taken back by their families, but this was not the end of their experiences of family life. Most were sent to be wet nursed in foster homes in the countryside, and here too, we can see some evidence of their experiences via the letters written by the inspectors of nurses back to the hospital. Not all of these experiences were happy, but this talk will illustrate how much the Foundling Hospital records can tell us about mothering, nurture and the model of childhood in the eighteenth century.
We were told that some mothers did try their best to at least leave the hospital with their children names, in hope of being able to recognise and retrieve their own children. Sadly very few managed to come up with the means to pick up these children, and also not that many of them survived. Given that back that in London almost half of the children die before they reached teen age, it was hard to imagine the hardship back then.
What’s most touching about this museum is that it is full of display of the tokens and threads created by these mothers out of desperation and love for their children. You can see little hand sewn heart that had been tagged along side of the record of the children, as well as little notes left with them,
‘Go gentle babe…
And all thy life be happiness and love’
It was heart breaking. But also up-lifting to experience the residue of parental love, despite hundreds of years have elapsed in between. If you have time for a little stroll around Russell Square, I’d recommend this museum most highly.
And if you’re not based in London, you may want to check out this TED talk on vulnerability which I found as fascinating,
‘Connection is why we are all here.’
‘In order for connection to happen, we have to allow ourselves to be seen. To be really seen.’
‘People who have a strong sense of worthiness and the people who do not, there is only one difference. It is that people who have a sense of worthiness believe that they were worth of love and belonging.’
Enjoy!
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