Editorial

Welcome to Part 2 of Volume 16 of Childhood in the Past, the journal of the Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past (SSCIP). This issue comprises two research papers and three book reviews as well as an obituary for Mark Golden (6 August 1948–9 April 2020), who was a member of the SSCIP Committee and Editorial Board for the journal.

In the first of the research papers, Sally Waite and Emma Gooch explore the reasons for the lack of representation of motherhood on Athenian painted pottery from the fifth century BC. They note how the production and care of children was a key role for woman in ancient Athenian society and that other evidence exists which demonstrates the particularly close bonds that women had with their infants. They review images of childcare in painted pottery in an attempt to assess how women and infants are characterised in both the private and public spheres of life. They interpret the paucity of images of motherhood as evidence of the devaluation, demonisation and appropriation of mothering within the context of the patriarchal nature of fifth century Athenian society and discuss the disconnect between motherhood as an institution and mothering as an experience.

The second paper by Lynne McKerr and I explores the social visibility of children in 17th and 18th century grave memorials from Ulster in the north of Ireland. The memorials included represent those of the Gaelic Irish as well as the largely Protestant settlers who came to the region during the Plantation of Ulster in the early 17th century. The frequencies and appearance of their commemorative grave memorials are explored to examine how children’s memorials may signify the religious, social and/or ethnic identity their families wished to express, in the aftermath of the major economic and cultural changes which followed the Plantation. It also investigates how, within this tense socio-political environment, distinctive familial plots may have enabled the Gaelic Irish to maintain their complex kin relationships and also been a means for settler families to establish or strengthen their social networks. We also explore how the appropriation of high status native burial grounds may have been a means of control and a powerful symbol of subjugation.

The journal ends with a collection of book reviews edited by Siân Halcrow – The Medieval Changeling: Health, Childcare, and the Family Unit, by Rose A. Sawyer; The Routledge Handbook of Paleopathology, edited by Anne L. Grauer and the Oxford Textbook of the Newborn: A Cultural and Medical History, by Michael Obladen.

As always, sincere thanks are due to all the contributors and reviewers who are so essential to the success of our journal.