Bump-Proof the Baby: Historic Wearables for Toddler Safety
Update: 2024-12-04
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Description
This week we investigate the variety of ways parents have historically dressed their toddlers to prevent injuries when they take that inevitable tumble. From puddings to go-wains and wicker walkers to ribbons of childhood, we look at the art historical record to explore childrenswear from the 16th-19th centuries.
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Transcript
00:00:00
Dress, the history of fashion, is a production of dress media.
00:00:03
Without our 8 billion people in the world, we all have one thing in common.
00:00:12
Every day, we all get dressed.
00:00:13
Welcome to Dress, the history of fashion, a podcast that explores the who-what-win of why we wear.
00:00:20
We are fashion historians and your hosts, Cassidy Zachary, and April Kellyanne.
00:00:24
Dress listeners and those of you listening to the show regularly will know that Cassidy has a little one who is a little over two now.
00:00:34
Yes, Cass?
00:00:34
Yes, Mr.
00:00:36
Leo is two and a half.
00:00:38
It's insane how fast time flies, but here we are.
00:00:41
Yeah, at two and a half, he's very much in his exploratory toddler phase.
00:00:46
And as we all know, this inevitably involves a little humble or two, maybe three or four per day, even, and Cass, we were in a meeting online the other day and you were like, oh no,
00:00:56
he got an accident and bruised to the lip.
00:00:58
So is he feeling better now?
00:01:00
Yeah, he totally tripped, smashed his lip open, but he's very resilient.
00:01:05
Toddlers are very resilient.
00:01:07
Let me tell you.
00:01:08
Yeah, really this is a tale as old as time and how parents have historically attempted to keep their toddlers bruised, scraped, and bump free was something that I actually started thinking about a few months ago when I was at the Met.
00:01:22
And a lot of you have heard on the show, I do weekly fashion history tours of the Met's permanent collection.
00:01:28
You can stay tuned at the end of the podcast if you'd like to know more details about that.
00:01:33
But essentially, I spent a lot of time at the Met.
00:01:35
And one day, in between tours, I was doing a little wander around the museum looking at artworks to include on a new tour that I'm developing.
00:01:43
And I ran across this painting by the Flemish painter, Peter Paul Rubens, that speaks directly to this question of historic methods of toddler safety.
00:01:53
And Cass, I've shared this work with you.
00:01:54
Perhaps you would like to do the honor of describing what is happening in this painting.
00:01:59
Why, yes, I will.
00:02:00
So this artwork in question is a very charming self-portrait of Rubens and his second wife, Elena Foremont, and their toddler son, Franz, who appears to be about two years old at this time.
00:02:13
And this portrait dates to circa 1635.
00:02:16
And the couple is very resplendently dressed as are most people in Rubens portraits.
00:02:22
So they're really decked out in 17th century high style.
00:02:26
And Rubens himself is wearing the satin doublet featuring slashing at the sleeves and chest.
00:02:30
And his ensemble is accessorized with leather gauntlets or gloves featuring a wide flared cuff.
00:02:36
And also, he's wearing a very jaunty, wide-brand cavalier hat.
00:02:41
Yes, I think the three musketeers here, friends.
00:02:44
This is that period of menswear that we're talking about exactly.
00:02:49
And while Rubens in his own right is attired as a very fashionable nobleman, his wife, Elena, is dressed in the latest of French styles of the day in a voluminous black satin gown with those buffant legum mutton sleeves and a very low decolatage.
00:03:06
Her breasts are barely contained by her stomach.
00:03:09
It looks like they're going to pop out at any moment.
00:03:13
As we have discussed quite fashionable historically, and then from the shoulders and back neckline of her dress, there is this sizable lace rough that has numerous layers.
00:03:24
And knowing what we know about lace, this no doubt was incredibly costly.
00:03:28
As we know, lace at this time was entirely handmade, incredibly expensive.
00:03:33
So it's such a luxury.
00:03:35
I love the fact that when they did met him to pump it or was basically appraisal of her estate, something like half of her net worth, and she was a very wealthy woman, was her lace.
00:03:45
Oh, yeah.
00:03:46
And just a wee art historical side note here, Elena was Rubens' second wife, and she was actually the niece of his first wife, who had passed away like four years earlier when they got married.
00:03:59
And she was only 16 when Rubens married her, and he was 53.
00:04:03
That's just saying.
00:04:05
Yeah.
00:04:06
They did have children together while she was still on her teens, including this son in this painting, Franz, who is really what we're here to talk about today, or rather what he is wearing is what we want to talk about today.
00:04:16
Yeah.
00:04:16
And at first glance, one might assume that this toddler is a little girl, as Franz is wearing this buttercream dress with a fluffy overskirt and this blue satin sash across the chest that also trails down over the front of the dress.
00:04:30
And his head has been wrapped in a white cloth of probably what would have been cotton or muslin.
00:04:35
And then over this, he wears a donut-like ring around his head, which has been fashioned out of the same blue satin as his sash.
00:04:42
Franz is looking up at his mother reaching out to her as she looks back at him while holding him on what appears to be a braided leash.
00:04:50
So there really is a lot going on in this image.
00:04:52
Yeah, there is.
00:04:53
And we're going to unpack it all.
00:04:56
Okay, so first of all, we're really here to focus on what Franz is wearing, right?
00:04:59
This is an episode on children's rare friends, the dress.
00:05:02
We have to remember that historically, both young boys and girls were attired in exactly the same types of long gowns and even dresses during their infancy and moving into their kind of like nursery years.
00:05:15
For centuries in Euro-American dress history, these gender distinctions between boys and girls in terms of their clothing did not occur until young boys reached approximately the age of six or so.
00:05:27
Sometimes this is a little bit younger, sometimes a little bit older, and the age was really dependent upon the parents' wishes as when they would like to "breach" their son.
00:05:38
And this term "breaching" refers to young boys receiving their first pair of breaches, trousers, or pants.
00:05:45
And for instance, in this early 17th century, the future king Louis XIII received his first pair of breaches at age seven in 1608.
00:05:55
And in a lot of ways, breaching was considered to be this right of passage for male children, especially England, where a young boy's breaching was often the cause for celebrations.
00:06:05
They would be like a party as if one was celebrating a birthday.
00:06:08
And so, you know, we have covered why our two-year-old France is wearing a dress, but this is actually the least interesting thing about this children's wear look.
00:06:16
Yeah, and I just want to say as a mother, now of a small child who has changed thousands of diapers in her life at this point, my guess is there is a practicality to boys also wearing a skirt.
00:06:28
If you think about it, as well as being part of this tradition, coming of age tradition, but I digress.
00:06:36
So, France's ensemble, as April mentioned, is interesting for a variety of reasons, including two features, which have now more or less fallen into obscurity.
00:06:47
And the first thing that we're going to talk about is his pudding or pudding cap, I love saying that.
00:06:52
It is essentially a padded ring worn about the forehead to protect the child's developing skull.
00:06:58
And puddings are widely depicted in portraiture of the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries.
00:07:04
And many museums actually have extant versions of puddings in their costume collections.
00:07:09
And one of the most striking examples of a pudding resides at the Victorian Albert Museum in London.
00:07:14
It dates to Circa 1775.
00:07:16
And as the museum notes, it, quote, consists of a horseshoe-shaped roll of glazed pink cotton with four lightly padded triangular flaps attached at regular intervals,
00:07:27
two of them fastening over the head, end quote.
00:07:30
And in a super adorable feature, how they fasten is with this giant black silk velvet ribbon.
00:07:36
Yeah, so basically, it's like a pink padded ring and has flaps that come up over the crown of the head.
00:07:43
And these flaps are tied together with a giant black bow on top.
00:07:48
And the whole thing is also additionally trimmed with black velvet.
00:07:51
It is so dainty, it's so sweet, it's like the palest pink and darkest black.
00:07:54
And you know, some of these puddings are pudding caps could be luxury objects depending on the wealth of the family.
00:08:01
And this is the case with one pudding that's in the collection at the costume institute at the Met.
00:08:06
It's actually made from this really shiny glazed green leather.
00:08:10
And then it's trimmed with the green silk ribbons.
00:08:13
And this one is from the early 19th century.
00:08:16
And this really underscores the fact that puddings or sometimes there are also called bumpers were worn by children for hundreds of years.
00:08:24
Yes.
00:08:25
And hopefully we'll be posting some of these images so you can see for yourself what we're talking about.
00:08:30
It almost looks like when you think about it, what boxers wear in the ring, that's what I always think of immediately.
00:08:36
Yeah.
00:08:36
And serving the same purpose, bow on top.
00:08:39
Yeah, serving the same purpose, maybe boxers need up their game just saying.
00:08:44
So I'm sure you're thinking dress listeners, what of this rather odd term pudding?
00:08:49
Why is this hat called a pudding?
00:08:51
And there's actually a couple of different theories on that.
00:08:54
One is that, which is the most practical and makes the most sense to me, is that the overall shape of the cap resembles the shape of a child's pudding bowl or the shape of what pudding would have looked like when it came out of that bowl.
00:09:05
But the other is that padded ring section resembles a sausage, which in the UK is a specific type of blood sausage that is called a black pudding.
00:09:16
And this term black pudding in reference to the cap comes up in primary sources from time to time.
00:09:21
And I always found black pudding very divisive.
00:09:25
Gross.
00:09:26
It's not my cup of tea.
00:09:28
And I'm a very adventurous eater as you know.
00:09:32
Like one more motto is a slice of your no food, but I'm not a black pudding girl.
00:09:36
Sorry guys.
00:09:37
I also just find it misleading, especially if you're an ignorant American coming to the UK for the first time, thinking you're eating some sort of pudding, which in the US is often sweet.
00:09:46
And then you're not not so pleasantly surprised if you're not a fan of blood pudding.
00:09:52
So anyways, there's multiple references to putting caps in historic sources.
00:09:58
And that includes the memoir of a sculptor by the name of Joseph Noelkins, who wrote in 1768 that quote, "At the age when most children place things on their head and say hot pies, presumably this is some sort of children's game."
00:10:10
And he goes on to say, "I displayed a black pudding on mine while my mother careful soul had provided for its protection in case I should fall."
00:10:19
He continues quote, "It would be difficult to produce a similar black pudding to mine where I not to state that it was made from a long narrow piece of black silk or satin padded with wadding and then formed to the head according to the taste of the parent or similar to that of little rubens."
00:10:37
And I found out that frequently that wadding or stuffing inside the kind of padded ring is actually horse hair cast or crin.
00:10:46
But also when I read this quote, I got a big kick out of it because essentially he's referring to that painting of Franz Rubens, which is the artwork that sent me down in the med that sent me down this rabbit hole in the first place.
00:10:59
So I find this primary source quote that was referring to the exact same painting that I love it when these pieces fall into place.
00:11:06
Yeah.
00:11:07
And speaking of keeping things in their place, we mentioned that Helena Rubens appears to be holding her son on a corded or braided leash of sorts.
00:11:16
So she's keeping him upright with this leash.
00:11:19
And this is the other feature of historic children's wear that has somewhat fallen pun intended out of fashion today, although not entirely.
00:11:28
And we're going to get to that in a moment.
00:11:30
But what we are seeing in this Rubens portrait and many other 17th to 19th century, your American portraits, is that children are wearing these leading strings or occasionally something called ribbons of childhood on their clothing.
00:11:44
And these were ribbons, cords or strips of fabric actually sewn to the back of garments high on the shoulders, which then were held by the children guardian in order to keep them from taking a tumble or wandering away.
00:11:56
When especially when toddlers are starting to walk, there's lots of that that's happening wandering.
00:12:03
Yes.
00:12:04
Yeah.
00:12:04
And these are really far from only being a stylish element of children's wear.
00:12:08
They were also seen as stylish.
00:12:10
But the use of leading strings was really considered to be a matter of health and safety in the art of nursing or the method of bringing up children according to the rules of physics,
00:12:22
which was published in London in 1733, the anonymous author advises, quote, but when his limbs begin to grow strong and nervous from the use of some good and substantial diet,
00:12:33
it will be time to make him begin to go alone.
00:12:36
Then his nurse ought to support him by his leading strings till he is able to put his feet on the ground and rest himself upon them.
00:12:44
In short, in order to accustom him to go along, he should be shut up in a little go car or go away, which will roll him on as he goes without any danger of falling.
00:12:54
And most children are wonderfully pleased and delighted with this king of exercise.
00:12:59
And quote, we're going to we're going to talk more about go carts and go wanes here in a little bit.
00:13:04
Yes.
00:13:04
And dress listeners, we promise that our social media reels for this week promise to delight because we have so many examples of some of these rather sweet ensembles of toddlers throughout history,
00:13:16
wearing the combination of their puddings and being held by these leading strings.
00:13:21
And a really lovely one comes to us from Gallery Day Mode, a costume france, which is an incredibly important source of fashion plates from the 18th century.
00:13:30
And the series states that all of the ensembles depicted in the plates were captured by artists based on what people at the time were actually wearing.
00:13:39
So meaning that you can think of this series as basically an 18th century street style blog.
00:13:44
Yeah, I always saw the students that and they all like they get like super excited.
00:13:49
And one of the plates that dates to around 1780 depicts a young governess and she's wearing this red striped walking gown with a black fissue or a shawl around her shoulders.
00:14:01
And then she has a white apron around her waist and her hair is covered in a pleated white muzzle cap.
00:14:06
It's trimmed with this turquoise ribbon that matches the turquoise sash worn by her young charge.
00:14:12
And this is a young boy of about a year and a half.
00:14:15
He's wearing a little white jumpsuit or Matalo bright red shoes and a turquoise cap trimmed with a white pleating.
00:14:22
And over his cap he wears a black pudding and two leading strings are sewn to his jumpsuit, which are preventing him from tipping forward as he's reaching for something on the ground ahead of him.
00:14:32
Yeah, and one of the things that struck me about this image is that the toddler is wearing a bifurcated garment.
00:14:39
Yeah, it has two legs.
00:14:40
We're rather than a dress or a gown as we had discussed previously.
00:14:44
So clearly there are exceptions to the rule here.
00:14:47
But the other thing that struck me is his little outfit is rather casual compared to some of the other children's where ensembles we see depicted in portraiture.
00:14:55
And this is almost certainly a sort of everyday garment that we see in this plate from gallery day mode, whereas the painted portraits could require more formal styles of dress because ultimately portraiture is often one of the goals of it is to document the family's wealth or status for posterity and cast in these portraits.
00:15:15
This is where we start to see some kind of wild children's wear because even at the age of three or so many of these young girls and toddlers in particular were expected to dress almost exactly like their mothers.
00:15:28
Yes, and historically this meant corsets which for centuries were not only considered to aid a growing child's posture, but also served as a basis for additional layers and layers of heavy embroidered fabrics that their gowns were comprised of.
00:15:42
And you can almost think about it.
00:15:43
I think Dr.
00:15:44
Amanda Wunder talked about it on our episode about the 16th century's fashions at this banish court.
00:15:50
This was almost like a girl's coming of age too, right?
00:15:53
When she got her first corset, her first crinoline or over skirt hooped pedicote, that was her coming of age fashioned ceremony that is indicating this next phase in life.
00:16:03
And these little ones that are wearing these fashions are further styled in what probably to a young person would have been a very itchy lace rough.
00:16:12
That would have been about their delicate necks.
00:16:14
They would have worn elaborate hats, hair, headpieces, primarily if you're of these upper classes, right?
00:16:19
The royalty.
00:16:20
Sometimes these headpieces consist of feathers, sometimes real jewels top their heads, and the silhouettes of their miniature gowns, as we mentioned, mimicked their mothers with padding about the hips to create the look of the bum rolls or pennies that their mothers would have worn.
00:16:35
And the effect of seeing these toddler girls dressed like adult women, yet still tethered to their mothers or nannies by their leading strings is a little surprising,
00:16:45
even shocking to us today.
00:16:47
It's amusing.
00:16:49
But at this time, it was entirely a commonplace.
00:16:53
Yeah, I think that this is an interesting point here because I'm sure at one time or another, most of us have seen parents at an airport or a shopping mall,
00:17:04
some are out in public who have a young child wearing a little harness, which is attached to a leash.
00:17:10
You can just jump on the internet to find dozens of these types of products for sale today.
00:17:15
But I think that now, when a lot of people see these in public, they're rather controversial for their association with leashed pets.
00:17:24
And contemporary public perception seems to be that the leashing of children strips them of their humanity in some way.
00:17:31
But in reality, the historic record proves that this was entirely acceptable, if not business as usual, for centuries.
00:17:39
Yes, and I'm going to have to just go on here and admit that I have leashed my child or what we would call a safety harness.
00:17:47
And there was no way I was going to Disneyland with my fast-running two-year-old this past summer without him being connected to me in some way.
00:17:58
But it is really interesting because there is a social stigma surrounding it for sure.
00:18:04
I personally don't really care what anyone thinks about my parenting style.
00:18:09
I know why I'm doing it.
00:18:10
But there is definitely a stigma with it.
00:18:13
And of the millions of other people that were at Disneyland with us, I only saw two other kids who are also harness.
00:18:18
So I think there is absolutely what you just talked about, which is really interesting.
00:18:22
But for us, it was definitely a matter of safety.
00:18:25
Were historians?
00:18:27
So you can set the record straight if anybody ever says anything to you about it.
00:18:31
And yes, and just to clarify, he's perfectly fine.
00:18:35
He's perfectly safe.
00:18:37
It is not like some sort of restrictive device, but it's for his safety and my nerves.
00:18:42
But we do see leading strings begin to fall out of fashion historically around the turn of the 19th century.
00:18:49
And some have speculated that this was in part due to the influence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who we know is the Ford thinking French philosopher, who advocated for more natural styles of child rearing,
00:19:01
including more comfortable clothing, freedom to play, those sorts of things that we perhaps take for granted today.
00:19:07
But as I just demonstrated, the concerns of parents for their toddler's safety did not disappear with the rise of enlightenment, thinking still very much alive and well.
00:19:16
But the historic wearables for toddler safety is just going to take on a brand new form in the early 19th century.
00:19:22
So more on that when we return from this sponsor break.
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00:21:46
Okay, before the break, we mentioned that we would get back to this 1733 reference to go carts and go wanes, which to be honest might just be some of the most whimsical of all of these types of protective wearables for toddlers.
00:22:01
We begin to see them pop up in the art historical record as early as the early 15th century, right?
00:22:08
And their use is actually also documented in a 1577 book by the author Omnibonus Ferrarius.
00:22:16
This book is entitled De Arte Medica Infantium.
00:22:21
It's only in Latin, but this basically translates to the medical arts for children.
00:22:26
And within the book, they even published a plate showing this stark naked toddler inside a pen that's on wheels.
00:22:35
And the base of this pen is a square.
00:22:38
It's made out of four wooden dowels.
00:22:41
And there are wheels at each corner that allow it to roll forward or backwards.
00:22:45
And then there are additional wooden dowels that rise up from the square, comprising the sides.
00:22:50
And then those connect to a very slightly smaller square at the top.
00:22:54
And inside the square is where the toddler is placed.
00:22:57
And they cling to these little sport bars and he can walk him or herself forward.
00:23:03
Yes.
00:23:03
And this probably is sounding a little bit familiar, a little contemporary perhaps.
00:23:07
And we, of course, we'll post an image of this on our socials this week because it is a rather wild, if not a tad creepy, rendering of a toddler.
00:23:14
But this, but this example, of course, is something I'm sure you're all recognizing as a baby walker.
00:23:24
And it is rather rudimentary in comparison with some of the other examples from the 16th century, including one from a portrait of a very young Marie Apollonia of Savoy from 1595.
00:23:34
Again, she's entirely dressed like a fashionable adult woman at this time.
00:23:39
But she would have been a very young girl, as we mentioned.
00:23:42
But she's wearing this heavily embroidered and embellished gown.
00:23:46
She's wearing a rough and ribbons and pearls in her hair.
00:23:49
She's about two years old.
00:23:50
And her go-cart or go-way is carved with floral and botanical motifs.
00:23:56
And the vertical dowels have been turned or shaped in the top rail is actually a circle that encompasses her little waist.
00:24:02
And she is joined in this portrait by a pigeon and her pet dog.
00:24:06
Yeah, also some of the dogs in these paintings and late middle ages, early Renaissance are also really crazy.
00:24:13
But apparently this particular style of walker remained popular or at least held a place in the popular imagination of the past for the next 250 years because there is this paper mache and ceramic baby doll at children's doll in the collection of a Dutch museum.
00:24:33
It dates to 1845 and the doll itself has one of these walkers that bears a striking resemblance to the go-cart or the go-way scene in this portrait of Maria Apollonia.
00:24:46
And of course, now we call these baby walkers.
00:24:50
But historically, this type of object has gone by a few names, obviously go-cart, go-way, and as we have already established, but also a walking trainer, a standing stool,
00:25:01
a baby cage, or a baby trot.
00:25:03
And while the terms for these devices have changed over time, the premise and the purpose of them really hasn't.
00:25:11
As Gertrude Jekyll recalled in her 1904 memoir, when the baby had grown beyond the crawling stage, it was exercised and encouraged to find its feet.
00:25:19
And at the same time kept safe from the fire by the baby runner.
00:25:23
The upright rod fitted at the bottom into a hole in the floor and at the top into the beam, the child was put in the wooden ring and the rack was attached to suit its height.
00:25:32
The child could move about in as much or a circle as a position of the contravence would allow.
00:25:38
And one of the things that I found super interesting in the course of my research is how standard the use of these types of walkers has been for 500 years.
00:25:50
Their forms and their materials have changed over time, and they kind of range from the handcrafted to the maths produced.
00:25:56
And I would like to start by mentioning some of these handcrafted ones first, because some of the most striking examples of these are these wicker basket walkers of the early 20th century.
00:26:09
And Cass, have you seen these?
00:26:10
Have you seen a photograph of these?
00:26:11
I have, yes.
00:26:12
Yeah.
00:26:13
And we're really fortunate to have a lot of them documented with photographs, not just engravings or paintings, but essentially these, we're using hand woven basket techniques to create these walkers that resemble the shape of them as like this upside,
00:26:28
it's like a bell shape or like a wicker lamp shade.
00:26:32
And then the narrow opening at the top is where the toddler slips into this basket structure essentially.
00:26:38
And a lot of these are somewhat rudimentary.
00:26:41
They don't have the wheels on them, like we see in other historic examples.
00:26:45
So this kind of as a historian leaves me to believe that these were probably inexpensive DIY made-home projects that their parents did,
00:26:56
which is very much part and parcel of parenting.
00:27:00
It's just figuring it out as you go and improvising.
00:27:03
But of course, other examples were mass produced, including the widely advertised glass cock baby walker that impairs in ladies' magazines from around 1904 onwards.
00:27:14
And this is a sleek modern incarnation.
00:27:17
And it has a wheeled metal ring bottom.
00:27:19
It's supported by curly cue metal side supports, which hold up a tray with a hole in the middle into which the toddler is placed.
00:27:26
With the widespread advertising of these types of mass produced walkers, we also see a little bit of a reconceptualization of their touted benefits.
00:27:35
So during the 16th and 17 centuries, they were mostly positioned as protective devices to keep the newly totalling toddler upright and safe from harm.
00:27:44
But in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, we see the promotion of baby walkers begin to take on medical connotations as well.
00:27:52
In 1905, the copy and one of these glass cocks baby walker ads reads, "Keep the baby clean, free from cold and out of mischief,
00:28:03
develops handsome straight legs, strengthens and develops the legs symmetrically, prevents their growing crooked leading physicians urge its use."
00:28:12
And I just want to say I'm going to also guess cast that some of this emphasis on these strong and straight limbs probably has something to do with this recurring polio outbreaks that were happening during the late 19th and early 20th century.
00:28:27
I would just curious about some facts about polio at that time.
00:28:30
And so I went over to the World Health Organization's website.
00:28:34
And they made this point that during this period of time, late 19th, early 20th century, that polio was the most feared disease in the world.
00:28:43
So it would make sense that they're tapping into a little bit of that concern on the part of parents.
00:28:49
Because of course, many of us know that one of the side effects of contracting polio could be permanent damage to the joints.
00:28:55
And this causes the limbs to appear maybe crooked or inflexible.
00:28:59
While in 1905, supposedly physicians were pro baby walker, as this ad indicates, if we fast forward another 100 years or so,
00:29:10
the advice of the medical professionals has done a complete 180.
00:29:15
So I'm curious cast does Leo have one of these wearable walker devices at home?
00:29:21
I asked for a specific reason.
00:29:23
No.
00:29:23
And I think you'll probably talk about this, but they're very controversial.
00:29:28
And so Leo didn't even have a balancer for a long time because balancers, there's a lot of debate around the side effects of keeping your children in like a walker or a balancer for too long.
00:29:41
So no, Leo does not have one of those.
00:29:43
Yeah, it seems that these types of baby walkers, and I will say I grew up with one.
00:29:48
I still remember being in it.
00:29:51
It does seem that they have fallen out of quote-unquote fashion in the recent decades.
00:29:55
And in 1989, Canada instituted a voluntary cease production request on baby walkers, citing the dangers of infants and walkers falling downstairs.
00:30:08
And in 2004, the country actually outright banned baby walkers.
00:30:13
And this, get this, it even extends to their resale on second hand sites and also rummage sales or garage sales, depending on where you are from.
00:30:21
Which is just sad when you think of why they had to do that, right?
00:30:24
It's not like they just pulled this out of their hands and said, we're banning these boys.
00:30:28
There was a lot of obviously studies and statistics out there if you guys really want to dig, dig into it.
00:30:34
Yeah.
00:30:34
And then also here in the US, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission instituted really strict guidelines for US manufacturers of products similar to these.
00:30:45
They now require breaks.
00:30:46
And there's like a whole list of other safety features that were put into place in 2010.
00:30:51
And even more recently, according to CBS News in 2018, quote, the American Academy of Pediatrics pushed for a ban, stating that walkers do not help babies learn to walk.
00:31:03
And in fact, they can delay normal motor and mental development.
00:31:07
And quote, yes.
00:31:08
And just a little offshoot on that.
00:31:10
I think it's also just, you just pay attention, right?
00:31:13
You don't leave your kid and their walker by themselves at the top of the stairs.
00:31:17
And you also don't leave them in it all day.
00:31:19
And that's the same thing with the bouncer, but I digress.
00:31:23
So Dr.
00:31:23
James dotting 10 is a pediatric emergency medical doctor.
00:31:27
And he was interviewed recently by consumer reports.
00:31:30
And he stated this current medical opinion on walkers quote, one thing that's really not well understood by the public in general is just how fast infants can travel in these walkers multiple feet per second.
00:31:42
And the risks are numerous.
00:31:44
The physician added noting that beyond head and neck injuries, babies can be burned by coming into contact with a hot stove inadvertently rolling into a pool or other body of water.
00:31:54
And quote, so April, how quickly the pendulum of pediatric advice has shifted, right?
00:32:01
And one century walkers were believed to be the first line of defense and protecting thoughts from the heart or fireplace.
00:32:09
And fast forward a few centuries medical professionals now view them as a distinct liability in kitchen spaces and other parts of your house.
00:32:16
And of course, ideas fall in and out of favor over time and are subject to their own systems of fashionability across cultures and history.
00:32:26
And it's not unlike clothing itself.
00:32:29
So we hope that you have enjoyed a quick little romp through a small selection of historic werebles for toddler safety from puddings to leading strings, baby harnesses,
00:32:39
do baby walkers, one child wearing point that all parents can agree upon throughout the annals of history is to keep those kiddos safe.
00:32:47
And now she's going to say and I'm sure these things apply to your dogs as well, April, which as we know are your children.
00:32:55
True that.
00:32:57
Actually, just now twice today now I've walked Clementine and she has a well all of her clothes and all of her accessories are orange for obvious reasons, but she has an orange puffer coat jacket and it zips at the back,
00:33:10
but then it has a harness built in that I click her leash to.
00:33:14
So it's her garment, which also serves these same purposes.
00:33:17
Exactly.
00:33:18
And before we sign off today, I just want to give a wee shout out to the website oldeninteresting.com because I found a lot of the sources that we talk about here today in their research on historic baby walkers.
00:33:31
And the reason why I'm getting this shout out is because they cite their sources, which is so amazing on the internet so many times people don't cite their sources.
00:33:41
And I'm actually one of those nerdy researchers that will go and track down those original primary sources from the 17th 18th even 16th century if they have been digitized because I want to see them for myself.
00:33:53
Some of the things that I did finally track down were only in Latin, but I just want to say I love it when fellow researchers give us this gift of citations on the internet so that we can continue to build upon each other's work.
00:34:04
So I have no idea who runs this site.
00:34:06
I tried to see if there was a name attached to it, but I couldn't find anything.
00:34:10
So thank you, whoever you are, if you are, they're listening.
00:34:13
I think that does it for us this week.
00:34:14
Dress listeners, may you consider what safe fashion looks like for you and your kids?
00:34:18
If you have them, next time you get dressed.
00:34:20
Dress listeners, we love hearing from you.
00:34:23
So please feel free to reach out to us at hello@dressthissue.com.
00:34:26
Dressthissue.com is of course our website where you will find more information about our upcoming classes, tours, and anything else we have up are finally tailored sleeves, which very soon, probably within the next week or so,
00:34:39
is going to include our new class, our new listing for our next dresses school of fashion course, which we are going to co-teach on the 1950s, golden age of oak tour.
00:34:48
And like I said, we're going to be posting that in the next week or two.
00:34:51
And then by early January, we are hoping to announce the dates for our Paris dress fashion history tour.
00:34:57
And not just announce the dates, we want to sell it because it's probably coming away in early May next year.
00:35:03
So watch that space email us to be the first to get on that list, because sometimes it just sells out from the wait list.
00:35:10
We already have quite a list.
00:35:13
We do already have a list.
00:35:14
So get on it.
00:35:15
Let us know because we could potentially add a second week if need be.
00:35:19
And I just want to say that we are also talking with the idea of actually spending the night at Versailles as a oat luck option.
00:35:26
So if you're interested in that, actually maybe put that in your emails, we can get an idea of who might want to stay with us.
00:35:33
Yeah.
00:35:34
And what this would be would probably be like before the rest of the trip originally starts.
00:35:38
And we say we're staying at Versailles.
00:35:40
We're not saying that we're only staying in the town of Versailles.
00:35:44
We're actually talking about staying in the palace in Versailles.
00:35:49
Versailles.
00:35:50
They're ristacres themselves lived in.
00:35:52
It's a little pricey, which is why it's an add-on.
00:35:56
But if you want a look seriously, I'm truly once in a lifetime experience.
00:36:01
It's it and you get complete private access after a while to the palace.
00:36:05
And there's dress-up options.
00:36:07
There's a full thing that you can spot.
00:36:09
There's a chance for you to dress up in 18th century, a tire complete with makeup, wigs, everything.
00:36:15
Anything you have a private settler.
00:36:16
Exactly.
00:36:17
Anything you possibly imagine, which is why April and I, of course, this is part of our fantasy.
00:36:21
And we would love to bring that fantasy to reality with you.
00:36:24
So let us know.
00:36:25
All right.
00:36:26
Speaking of bringing a fantasy to reality at the top of this episode, I mentioned my fashion history tours of the Met.
00:36:33
They are back now.
00:36:34
They were on pause for a bit while I was in Paris for a couple of months.
00:36:37
So they're back up and available to book now at DressToHistory.com.
00:36:42
You can sign up either for Tuesday mornings with me at the Met or Friday evenings currently.
00:36:48
And also, I can do tours for your group or organization at other times.
00:36:53
You just need to connect with me in advance to set all of that up at HelloAtDressHistory.com.
00:36:59
And if you would like the visual content as promised, connect it to each week's episode.
00:37:04
Follow us on our Instagram @dress_podcast.
00:37:07
The content specifically connected to this week's episode that you're not gonna want to miss can be found at #dressed526.
00:37:14
And dress listeners, the holidays are just around the corner.
00:37:18
So you can actually gift people our class if you want.
00:37:21
When we post it, we will give you an option.
00:37:23
If you want it to be a gift, we'll send you a separate type of PDF.
00:37:26
But you can also head on over to our bookshop.org for a slash shop, for a slash dress, for more than 150 of our favorite fashion history titles.
00:37:36
And we also link to that in our show notes.
00:37:38
So buy something for yourself, send your wishlifts to your loved ones, and have fun.
00:37:43
Yes, love dress.
00:37:45
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00:37:51
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00:37:54
As always, thank you for your continued support.
00:37:57
More dressed, coming your way on Friday.
00:37:59
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