WEBVTT - From the Vault: Before You Could Remember, Part 1 0:00:06.200 --> 0:00:07.880 Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:08.000 --> 0:00:10.680 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:10.720 --> 0:00:12.920 it's Saturday. Time to go into the vault for an 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:15.440 older episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. This one 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:18.960 originally published April fourth, twenty twenty three, and it's part 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:21.840 one of our series called Before You Could Remember, about 0:00:22.239 --> 0:00:25.560 the age at which we start forming permanent memories or 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:28.640 memories that we can access later. We get into all 0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:31.800 the nuances there in the episode, so we hope. 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:33.480 You like it. Yeah, these were a lot of fun 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:37.120 and they generated a lot of listener commentary. So if 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:39.400 you have fresh thoughts on this episode and the ones 0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:41.640 to follow, write in. We'd love to hear from you. 0:00:44.880 --> 0:00:48.800 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:56.840 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:56.920 --> 0:00:57.760 name is Robert. 0:00:57.600 --> 0:01:00.400 Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're going to 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:04.360 be talking about that hole in your memory before the 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:09.560 earliest one you can produce, also known as infantile amnesia. 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:13.160 And hey, listeners, you were promised you would be getting 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:17.280 some baby looked at Me topics this year. My wife 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:19.880 and I had a baby this past October, and I 0:01:19.880 --> 0:01:22.640 think many of you have been practically daring me to 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:27.280 embark on indulgent dad topics. But here we've arrived at 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:31.560 one because so I think the way I got here 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:36.039 was recently we have started spending a lot of time 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:40.600 trying to make a five month old baby laugh. Rob, 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:42.600 I don't know how much experience you have with this, 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:45.160 like the parent comedian routine. 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:48.680 Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, a lot of hours clocked on 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:50.040 that particular stand up game. 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:55.880 Well, sometime recently Rachel figured out what our baby's favorite 0:01:55.920 --> 0:01:59.320 genre of comedy was, at least for that day, and 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:04.200 it will a textile gravity comedy. It was. The act 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:06.720 was you hold a cloth up in the air and 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:09.840 then you drop the cloth on the baby, and when 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:14.320 the cloth falls down and hits the baby, this is hilarious. 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:19.200 It was creating these storms of laughter from another dimension, 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:24.720 truly riveting experience, at least for us. But I started 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:28.040 to wonder, like, why is this funny? And of course 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:30.239 I wanted to ask her, but she's a five month 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:33.360 old baby, not talking yet, she can't explain why it's funny. 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:37.600 And I was thinking, one day will I be able 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:40.800 to ask her. You remember when we were dropping the 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:43.680 cloth on you, and you thought this was so funny. 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:46.239 Why was it funny? What was going through your mind? 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:49.880 But I just know that's probably never a conversation that's 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:53.040 going to go anywhere, because is she really going to 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:56.160 even remember this by the time she can talk about it, 0:02:56.880 --> 0:03:00.400 Because I certainly don't have any memories that I can 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:03.919 bring up now from being five months old, or even 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:07.320 from being one year old, or even from being two 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:11.920 years old. I'm not sure, honestly what my earliest memory is, 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:14.440 but I know I don't have any memories I feel 0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:18.280 confident about from the first several years of my life. 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:21.160 And it turns out this is not unique to me. 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:24.400 This is pretty common. Most people feel this way, that 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:28.560 they don't have any really solid memories from the first 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:31.600 several years of their lives. And so I just got 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:34.040 really interested in the question of why that is. 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:37.600 Yeah, I mean, unless you are biological mother partook of 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:42.480 the waters of life, she was pregnant, you're probably not 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:45.280 pre born like that. You're not gonna You're not gonna 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:49.720 remember these things. And we'll get into some there is 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:54.080 a certain amount of subjectiveness to all of this, and 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:56.400 we'll get into some of that, and certainly we'd love 0:03:56.440 --> 0:03:58.840 to hear from any listeners out there who are firm 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:01.120 on this or feel firm and are like, yes, I 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:05.160 do remember being under the age of two that sort 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:09.280 of thing. But most of the research seems to point 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:11.880 in a different direction that most. It seems like most 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:14.760 of what we remember is after a certain point in 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:18.960 our development, and that certainly your daughter has not quite 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:20.000 reached that point. 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:23.360 Which is not to say that she is not capable 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:28.280 of memory, because I mean several things I can notice. 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:33.400 She recognizes faces, and she is forming associations and routines. 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:36.680 There's learning going on at this point in a baby's development, 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:39.599 and learning is to some extent based on memory. So 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:42.520 it's not that the brain is not capable of any 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:45.120 type of memory at this point. But it seems that 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:50.279 most people's brains at this point are not producing episodic 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:55.560 or autobiographical memories. Episodic memories meaning memories of specific events 0:04:55.760 --> 0:05:00.560 or experiences, not producing sort of narrative memory of that 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:03.960 type that can be retrieved later in life. I guess 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:07.000 it's a question whether memories of that type are formed 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:10.719 at all, And so I don't have any memories like that. 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:15.320 From infancy. Most people report the same, and I cannot, 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:18.560 honestly from my memory, tell you a story about anything 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:21.240 that happened before I was probably like four or five 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:24.840 or so. You do bring up the idea that there 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:26.640 are a small number of people who claim they can 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:29.520 remember like being born or being a baby. But even 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:32.920 in those cases, while you can't say, well, you're just wrong, 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:35.200 you don't remember that, I think it's reasonable to be 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:39.760 skeptical about whether those are real memories or just later confabulations. 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:42.600 Yeah. Yeah, And on this note, I think it's important 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:45.880 to remind listeners that fabricated memories are by no means 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:49.919 necessarily intentional. They are numerous ways that we've discussed in 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:52.760 the show before, numerous ways that false memories may be encoded. 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:56.360 There are plenty of examples of cases where attested early 0:05:56.440 --> 0:06:00.279 childhood memories can ultimately be attributed to stories one is 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:04.080 told about one's younger years and or something formed out 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:07.520 of say longing or desire for a certain framework. A 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:09.640 lot of stuff like that out there. And again, we, 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:12.520 as we've touched on many times before, like we alter 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:15.280 memories every time we draw them out, every time we 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:18.640 get them out of the storage. We get our fingerprints 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:20.960 all over them, and we change them. And then ultimately, 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:23.920 the memories that are most dear to us, the ones 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:26.200 that we pull out the most are the ones that 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:28.120 are potentially the most altered. 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:30.919 Right because the form in which they are stored in 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:33.800 memory is ultimately the form in which you rehearse them. 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:36.320 You know, it's not a videotape. It is a it's 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:39.640 a constant sort of like rewriting over the same document. 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:42.440 Yeah. Yeah. And and to your point, though, it is 0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:45.840 kind of ironic that when you have a young child 0:06:45.920 --> 0:06:50.360 in the house like this, for parents, this is or 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:53.640 or even you know, other people in that infant's life, 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:56.320 these are some of the dearest moments. You know, you're 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:58.960 experiencing these moments and you're like, this, this is you 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:01.400 can feel it in you can you know this is 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:03.640 something you're never going to forget. And then on the 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:07.040 other hand, you have at least a very strong suspicion 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:09.279 that the child is not going to remember it the 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:13.160 way that you remember it. Uh And and it's it's 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:15.120 so it's something that I know that we my wife 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:16.800 and I talked a lot about with our son when 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:19.880 he when he was much younger, and sometimes my son 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:21.880 will come in on this, because when your jow gets over, 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:23.560 you're always like, well do you remember this? Do you 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:26.000 remember that? Or I remember when this happened, but I 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:28.280 know you don't remember it. And so there are a 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:31.240 lot of conversations like that. And then sometimes we'll be 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:33.440 on a trip and our son, at this point, who's 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:36.360 almost eleven, he'll comment like, oh, well, that baby's not 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:39.400 even going to remember that vacation, seeing like a you know, 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:42.440 another couple with an infant on a trip, but. 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:45.000 It might as well not even take it. 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:47.240 Yeah, well, you know that's that's kind of the joke, right, 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:48.960 Like just go and put your baby in a closet 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:50.680 for a few years because they're not going to remember 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:53.200 these expensive trips. But of course you can't do that. 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:55.000 That's not how it works. You have to have these 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:58.280 moments and these trips, and and just because the baby's 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:02.280 not recalling it the way an adult recalls something later 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:05.920 doesn't mean that it's not quote unquote remembered. 0:08:06.000 --> 0:08:10.480 Right, those I mean those instead of say having autobiographical 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:14.120 memories that can later be retrieved in narrative form. Instead, 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:17.960 the effect of those experiences might be say structural impacts 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:19.160 on the development of the brain. 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:22.840 Right, there's a great quote that came up in a 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:25.200 paper I'm going to source here in a bet where 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:27.920 they said something that you know, it's quite simple, but 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:30.120 I think is important to keep in mind in this 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:33.880 context and memory context in general. The brain remembers what 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:37.360 it needs to remember, you know, and and the memory 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:40.360 demands on say a five month old baby or a 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:42.040 one year old child one and a half year old 0:08:42.080 --> 0:08:46.680 child are different. And therefore, again, it's nothing bad about 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:49.559 not having not being able to recall when you were 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:52.160 two or three or four or five. It's just it's 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:54.760 just what your brain needed to do. And as we'll 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:56.199 get into, there are different reasons for this. 0:08:57.080 --> 0:08:59.319 Yes, So that's what we're going to be exploring in 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:04.079 this series. Questions like why don't most people have specific 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:09.319 autobiographical memories of being a baby. Do we have episodic 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:12.559 memories of infancy which get like erased from the brain 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:16.599 for some reason, or do we never form episodic memories 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:19.400 of babe life in the first place. Obviously there's some 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:23.800 kind of memory going on in very young childhood and infancy, 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:26.160 but maybe it just like it doesn't have an episodic 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:30.400 memory component. Maybe it can remember associations and images, but 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:35.120 maybe not like sequences of events. Or maybe is there 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:38.720 some weird third option, like we do form memories and 0:09:38.760 --> 0:09:42.040 they're not exactly erased later, but they're sort of fuzzy 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:45.560 or hard to retrieve for some reason. That that's what 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:49.360 got me really interested in this exploration today. But of 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:52.520 course I also got very interested in the question of 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:56.199 before people could do experiments on this, they must have 0:09:56.600 --> 0:10:01.160 observed childhood development firsthand and had all kinds of questions 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:03.400 of this sort and probably come up with answers whether 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:04.920 or not those answers were accurate. 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:08.840 Yeah. So yeah, let's get in a little bit into 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:10.960 just sort of some of the history of some of 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:14.719 some sort of pre modern infant opinions, and also a 0:10:14.760 --> 0:10:17.560 little bit of cultural variation. I think one of the 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:19.400 things to keep in mind about pre modern and pre 0:10:19.440 --> 0:10:21.920 scientific beliefs about infant memory is that a lot of 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:24.240 it is going to come down to older beliefs about 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:28.640 what human infants are and what they are not, And 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:31.160 so this is all a mixture of things based on 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:35.400 cultural tradition but also based on observation. I think it 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:39.040 goes without saying that no matter what may have been 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:43.600 ultimately recorded in literature ancient people, you know they would 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:47.280 have applied different insights and different ideas to the experience 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:49.839 of babies, but some things were obviously going to be 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:52.800 the same. Babies evoke strong emotions in us. That's just 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:56.520 part of the way we're hardwired. Babies require a great 0:10:56.520 --> 0:11:01.600 deal of care. Babies cry baby is inherently can't communicate precisely. 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:05.920 And also, human memories of early childhood or the lack thereof, 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:08.920 would have been identical more or less to what we 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:11.360 have now, or at least any differences are not going 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:16.880 to be based merely on say the timeline, and we'll 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:18.000 get into some of that in a bit. 0:11:18.520 --> 0:11:20.840 Right. For example, I would really not say that the 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:26.480 current characteristics of infantile amnesia or memory formation and very 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:30.600 young children are say, a result of the Internet or 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:33.840 some other kind of like technological context, especially because we 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:37.840 know people have been in the more modern era doing 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:40.280 research on this going back more than one hundred years, 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:43.520 so before a lot of the sort of like communications 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:47.480 and technology context we live in today, people were asking, Hey, 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:51.000 when are people's first memories and what do they remember 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:54.040 about childhood? And the answers were largely the same as 0:11:54.080 --> 0:11:55.640 what we get when we ask that today. 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:58.960 Yeah. Yeah, So it doesn't seem like there's any expectation 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:02.319 that there's been significant variation in this, aside from variation 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:06.000 that occurs for cultural reasons and so forth. But again, 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:07.280 a lot of this is going to come down to 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:11.120 how we think about babies. And again it's interesting because 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:13.839 on one hand, yes, we have this inherent draw towards 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:16.800 our own young and to the young of our community. 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:19.680 But at the same time, you know, you often hear 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:22.520 people talk about older kids, and you'll hear them say, well, 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:24.640 you remember what it was like when you were that age. 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:28.040 You know, there's a certain relatability in that. But generally 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:32.240 they're not saying this about infants or very young toddlers, 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:35.080 because by and large, we don't remember what it was 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:37.480 it was like to be that age. We only remember 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:39.680 the stories of what we were like at that age 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:45.320 and so forth. Now, examining how people in ancient times, 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:49.280 for example, thought about babies, thinking about pre modern and 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:52.480 pre scientific thinking into all of this, you also have 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:56.240 to take into account infant mortality rates, which were often 0:12:56.440 --> 0:12:59.840 high in ancient times, and I realized that infant mortality 0:12:59.880 --> 0:13:03.199 is not exactly a fun topic. But some of the 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:06.000 attitudes of the ancient world surrounding the nature of infants 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:10.120 is more sharply expressed over the subject, or so it seems. 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:12.280 So we are going to touch on it a little bit, 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:13.440 at least in passing. 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:17.079 Yeah, it's sort of unavoidable for most of human history, 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:19.520 for most people, just a major fact of life. 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:23.040 Yeah. So I looked at a few different sources about 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:26.079 the understanding of infants in ancient Greek and ancient Rome. 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:30.000 In Childbirth and Infancy in Greek and Roman Antiquity from 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:34.200 twenty eleven, author Varonech Dawson points out a number of 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:37.600 interesting things about how these ancient people seems to seem 0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:40.360 to have considered young children based on the evidence we 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:42.719 have to go on today. And so I want to 0:13:42.760 --> 0:13:46.240 outline some interesting points that they bring up. First of all, 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:49.400 most of what we know relates to elite children rather 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:52.320 than the lives of those born into lower classes or 0:13:52.360 --> 0:13:54.839 to enslaved people. Also, we have to think about the 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:58.160 terminology here. This is fascinating. So you know, basically the 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:05.480 infant toddlerdynamic and duality. It's interesting and potentially telling in 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:10.000 that changes in terminology may indicate changes in cultural understanding 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:13.800 of young children. So you know, certainly there's a difference 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:16.160 between an infant and a toddler, and we tend to 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:20.480 sort of we tend to mark that transition point. But 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:23.760 to what extent is that transition point born out in 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:27.680 a people's language, and at what point does the language 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:31.240 potentially shift, etc. Basically just sort of a larger background 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:33.840 topic to keep in mind, but the big point here 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:36.200 is that it's most helpful to think of childhood as 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:40.280 a journey, one that hits different milestones, goes through different stages, 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:43.640 and that in this in turn alters the way that 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:47.000 adults view the child and the degree to which they 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:51.880 can be integrated into society. Also, Dawson points out quote 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:56.040 in times of high infant mortality, these stages represented steps 0:14:56.520 --> 0:15:00.880 for hope of survival and increasing parental bonding. We'll come 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:03.600 back to exactly what is meant by that, but basically 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:06.520 it comes down to, like, how does a culture deal 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:09.560 with the fact that there is a high infant mortality rate. 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:12.760 Is there more of a sort of pushing away kind 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:16.920 of like a ultimately a stoic reaction sort of distancing 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:20.960 of the infant from the society or making it kind 0:15:20.960 --> 0:15:24.400 of a marginal state, or is there indeed still a 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:37.360 lot of bonding going on and so forth. Now, with 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:40.480 the Greek and Roman viewpoints, specifically, what we think of 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:43.240 as infancy would have probably ended at age two or three, 0:15:43.600 --> 0:15:47.440 with full weaning, increased ability to speak, and at age 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:51.840 three integration into practiced religion at least at some degree. Now, 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:55.280 Medically speaking, it was previously supposed that there was next 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:58.680 to nothing in the literature of ancient Greek and ancient 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:01.760 Rome to suggest that physicians were concerned with babies except 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:05.640 in exceptional circumstances. It was thought that babies in general 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:09.080 were left to the midwives and the mothers. However, Dawson 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:11.880 stresses that this is no longer really a correct viewpoint, 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:14.760 based on numerous examples of writings that have come up 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:19.400 about say, essential diet and hygiene for babies. So I 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:23.760 think that's interesting, representing a shift in our modern understanding 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:26.760 about ancient views on infants. 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:29.400 That they were actually sometimes a more relevant object of 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:31.960 what was considered medicine. 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:35.600 Yeah, there's sort of this, and we'll get into it 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:38.000 more in just a second. Here but there was this 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:42.600 understanding of the ancient world based on some significant evidence 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:47.440 that basically the ruling male elite were saying, like, babies 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:50.440 that don't not even worth your time, not worth my 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:52.640 time anyway, call me when it is old enough for 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:55.920 me to care about it, or if there's if it's exploding, 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:58.520 then yes, a physician may come and check out the child. 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:01.120 That sort of thing. Without a doubt, there seems to 0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:04.240 have been far less of a view of baby superiority 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:07.960 in ancient Greek and ancient Rome. Dawson writes the following 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:12.880 this is great quote from Hippocrates. To late antiquity, babies 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:15.879 and toddlers are defined as a category of beings with 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:21.240 a special morphology and physiology. These characteristics are on the 0:17:21.280 --> 0:17:26.480 whole negative. Newborn babies are generally described as imperfect, weak, 0:17:26.960 --> 0:17:27.560 and ugly. 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:32.480 Wow perfect yes, oh no. This reminds me of the 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:35.560 story you've shared many times of your son calling the 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:38.560 cat a stupid baby or just a baby. 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:40.879 Maybe when it was just baby, like baby is an 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:45.680 adjective baby mochi and just a solid burn. As a toddler, 0:17:45.760 --> 0:17:46.160 it's like. 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:48.760 Peak insult, imperfect, weak and ugly. 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:55.000 Yeah yee toddlers get it, and so did the grown 0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:59.560 learned men of ancient Greece. So Dawson points a few 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:03.600 specific authors to underline these views. So Aristotle wrote that 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:07.560 babies quote are born in a more imperfect condition than 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:11.040 any other perfected animal, and also that they have poor eyesight. 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:14.000 Oh well, it depends on what Aristotle means by that. 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:16.960 I'm not sure the full context, but if he's making 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:20.400 a distinction between human beings and other animals, I think 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:26.080 that's a fair observation that human babies are more helpless 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:28.960 than the newborns of most other animal species. 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:32.680 Yeah. Absolutely, I think that's what he's going for here. 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:37.560 There's another work on colors that is sometimes attributed to Aristotle, 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:39.600 and in this it's pointed out that babies are ugly 0:18:39.680 --> 0:18:42.280 because or well, it's I'm not sure it says ugly, 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:44.960 but it points out that they're's Essentially, they're ugly because 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:47.280 they have red faces and little hair. 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:51.720 Do you ever get the feeling that like Aristotle might 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:54.159 have been writing about human babies the same way he 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:58.320 was writing about like stingrays. It's just like this is 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:01.000 something he's observed a couple of times and made a 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:02.200 few notes about. 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:05.280 Yeah, I mean I've seen some pretty hairy little babies before, 0:19:05.400 --> 0:19:09.280 so I mean they think it ferries. Yeah, but yes, 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:11.159 on the whole they tend not die guess half of 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:14.280 like a full head of hair or certainly a proper beard. Now. 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:16.720 Galen was one of numerous physicians to comment on the 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:21.639 seeming wax like malleability and weakness of the baby. Weakness 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:25.240 of the baby. Babies are so weak. They're they're weak, 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:27.680 and they're they're basically made out of wax. Like if 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:29.560 you don't handle them too much or you will change 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:31.800 their form completely. They do tend to be doe. 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:35.520 Yeah, that's true. But also Galen, I can just tell 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:38.840 this guy did not spend much time holding a baby because, 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:42.399 like especially Galen, probably at a beard. I've got a beard. 0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:46.080 When when you feel the baby, grab the beard and 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:49.240 just not leg this. This is the handle for the adult, 0:19:49.400 --> 0:19:51.840 and it will pull until it has a fist full 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:54.159 of beard hair. You do not walk away with the 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:56.120 impression of how weak babies are. 0:19:57.840 --> 0:20:01.880 Aristotle also recorded that many babies die within the first 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:05.480 week and are therefore not named before this period passes. 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:09.920 And this is a kind of approach to the first 0:20:09.960 --> 0:20:12.520 week or so of a child's life that you see 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:18.080 reflected in various cultures in various times. Meanwhile, Plutarch just 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:21.000 wonders if babies are in fact animals, because they're more 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:22.840 like vegetables. They're more like a plant. 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:27.280 I mean, yeah, plants cry at midnight, plants poop where 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:29.560 they want to. That's exactly what a plant is. 0:20:31.040 --> 0:20:34.800 Dason adds this line here quote a mineral metaphor substitutes 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:38.480 for the vegetable one in Chronos's myth, who ate his 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:41.040 children as soon as they were born and thought a 0:20:41.119 --> 0:20:45.399 stone to be a swaddled nursling. So you know, is 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:47.479 it a baby is it a stone? Like anyone can 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:48.119 tell the difference? 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:50.000 I guess yeah. Is that supposed to be a comment 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:55.160 on how featureless and uninteresting babies are? Or is that 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:58.800 myth supposed to be like a joke about Chronos being stupid? 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:04.520 I mean, granted I was as a modern English speaking human, 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:07.520 I'm not the intended audience, I guess for the myth, 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:09.800 but I always interpreted it as being like he's just 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:14.119 so consumed with this need to destroy his young. You 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:16.080 know that he's just like just gobbles them up without 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:17.160 really tasting them, you. 0:21:17.080 --> 0:21:20.800 Know, Yeah, more like he's more machine now than man, 0:21:20.920 --> 0:21:23.800 almost like a he's a baby eating machine. He barely 0:21:23.880 --> 0:21:27.280 notices or has cognizance of what's going in his mouth. 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:32.960 Yeah. So, after expressing some of these, again aristocratic male 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:36.760 opinions on babies recorded in the literature, I think it's 0:21:36.760 --> 0:21:39.520 a good time to stress something that another author drives 0:21:39.520 --> 0:21:42.879 home as well. And this is from the work of 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:46.480 Marine Carrol in Infant Death and Burial in Roman Italy 0:21:46.800 --> 0:21:49.680 from twenty fifteen. She points out that we base a 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:52.080 lot of our understanding of this topic on the writings 0:21:52.119 --> 0:21:56.400 of stoic male, aristocratic literary elite, and also the arguments 0:21:56.720 --> 0:22:00.480 that the remains in Roman cemetery seem to bear this out. 0:22:00.760 --> 0:22:04.359 The I think, quote unquote invisibility of the young child 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:06.120 in Roman cemeteries. 0:22:06.480 --> 0:22:09.359 Yeah, and unfortunately this is true about a lot of 0:22:09.400 --> 0:22:12.359 things in the ancient world. When you have to consult 0:22:12.920 --> 0:22:16.040 literary texts to get a flavor of ancient life, that's 0:22:16.160 --> 0:22:18.440 necessarily going to be leaving a lot of stuff out 0:22:18.480 --> 0:22:22.000