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Preface
The "tainted milk powder" incident that broke out in 2008 made everyone angry, and it also reminded us of this:
Feed the child or go on your own, don't rely on milk powder so much!
Then again, modern mothers, who don't have enough milk, can also look for milk powder as a substitute.
So how did ancient mothers raise their children if they didn't have enough breast milk?
The nurse of the aristocracy
In ancient times, due to the relative scarcity of materials and people's lack of knowledge of nutritional matching, it was often difficult for women born in wealthy families to have enough milk to feed their children.
However, in ancient times, there was no milk powder that could be used as a substitute, so the nurse became their choice.
It should be noted that in ancient times, the royal nurse represented not only the source of food for the baby, but also the responsibility of taking care of the prince.
And if a certain prince becomes the emperor, the nurse and her family will also usher in a boom.
For example, we are familiar with Cao Xueqin, the author of "Dream of Red Mansions".
Do you know why the Cao family can almost make Jiangning Weaving their own hereditary official?
It's because Cao Xueqin's grandmother Sun is the nurse of Emperor Kangxi!
It is precisely by virtue of this special relationship that the Cao family has become Kangxi's hardcore henchmen, and when Kangxi went to Jiangnan six times, he lived in the Cao family four times!
In addition, one of the reasons why Lu Bing, the commander of the Jinyi Guard in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, was able to become the strongest Jinyi Guard to overwhelm the East Factory and the West Factory was that his mother was the nurse of Emperor Jiajing.
To be honest, compared with those brothers who have competing interests, these brothers who grew up on the same mother's milk as their relatives and do not affect their own power are often more trusted by the emperor.
In addition, in addition to taking care of the prince, the royal nurse often has to take on some adult education duties.
For example, the guest wife of the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, although the guest lady entered the palace as the emperor's nurse, but after the emperor grew up, she still lived in the palace and made the emperor obey.
Wei Zhongxian's rapid rise is also inseparable from the help of this lady, and many historical books record that the relationship between the two is somewhat beyond that of the nurse and the adopted son.
Of course, these are exceptions, after all, under normal circumstances, a prince's nurse is more than N, and if you want to stand out, you also have to look at your ability.
So then again, in ancient times, there must be a very small number of people who could afford to hire a nurse, so for the vast majority of civilians who could not afford to hire a nurse, how should they raise their children?
What do civilians eat for their babies
The women of rich and noble families eat and drink well, and they are not able to have enough milk to feed their children, so the commoners whose living conditions are even worse should not think of feeding their babies with breast milk.
In this case, in order to make their children grow up, parents really have their own powers.
The best choice is to recognize the godmother.
Due to the poor medical conditions in ancient times, the infant mortality rate was very high, and there was no concept of family planning, so that many women often encountered the tragedy of just giving birth to a child, and the world and man were separated in an instant.
At this time, people can visit other homes with newborn babies and some gifts, hoping that the other party will recognize the child as a god, so as to get the other party's milk.
This is a good thing for mutual benefit, the mother who has lost her child can get spiritual comfort, and after having this title, the future godson will also have to take on the obligation to provide for the elderly.
This was a very important guarantee in ancient times, when the female society was relatively low.
But then again, if you want to worship your godmother, it also depends on luck, after all, there are some things that you can't touch if you want to.
So if you can't worship your godmother, how can you feed the baby?
The answer is to drink soup.
If the conditions are better, rice and millet will be boiled into powder, boiled into a paste, and fed to the children.
Although the nutrition is certainly not as good as breast milk, it can be satisfying.
The conditions are worse, and they can only find some wild vegetables and fruits to boil into heterozygous porridge to feed the children.
Of course, some people may ask, why is there no milk or goat's milk?
Let's start with milk.
The cows we are accustomed to today are products of Europe, and the ancient Chinese have never seen them at all, so how can they take milk and feed it to their children?
As for goat's milk, it was not so readily available in ancient China, at least for the common people who struggled on the poverty line.
Moreover, whether it is goat's milk or cow's milk, it cannot be drunk directly, it needs to go through a series of disinfection treatments, if it is drunk directly, it will die!
In ancient times, the processing of cow's and goat's milk was a very cumbersome process, and with the use of manpower, it took even the most skilled Mongolian woman two hours to complete the processing of goat's milk.
Therefore, in ancient times, even if goat's milk was really sold in the market, the price was not something that ordinary people could afford.
But that's not the worst case scenario, have you ever heard of baby drowning?
The past is unbearable
For us today, if any parent abandons their children, or simply throws them into the water and drowns them, then this kind of behavior is absolutely unconscionable and will be punished by both morality and law.
However, if you carefully read the ancient records of folk babies, then you will sadly find that in ancient times, drowning and abandoning babies were very common.
Because the life of the common people in ancient times was really too hard!
Needless to say, when the war is torn, when you open the history books and war, even people will be treated as dry food!
And even in the so-called peaceful and prosperous times, how many ordinary people can bathe in the emperor's grace?
Let's talk about the Song Dynasty, now many people always say how rich the life of the people of the Song Dynasty was, but do these riches include the common people?
In "History of the Song Dynasty", there are many places where it is written that the people are prevalent in abandoned babies, and even drowning babies!
For example, during the Song Dynasty Shenzong, Zhang Dian, who had served as the prime minister, almost became a "water ghost" when he was a baby!
epilogue
Children are the future of the family and the nation.
In ancient times, when materials and technology were not developed, although everyone wanted to raise their children well, some families were more than willing to do so.
Living in modern times, we have a variety of food to choose from, and we should treat our children well, and as parents, remember to be responsible for our children.