The Baptists emerged out of the Independents. They
believed that only adults, who were capable of full belief, and
not children, could be baptized. They also believed that it was
the right of any man to seek God's truth for himself in the
scriptures and that obedience to the state should not extend
beyond personal conscience.
One fourth of all children born did not live to the age of ten,
most dying in their first year. Babies had close caps over their
head, a rattle, and slept in a sturdy wood cradle that rocked on
the floor, usually near the hearth. Babies of wealthier families
had nurses. The babies of ladies were suckled by wet nurses.
Parents raised children with affection and tried to prepare them
to become independent self-sustaining adults. There was less
severity than in Tudor times, although the maxim "spare the rod
and spoil the child" was generally believed, especially by
Puritans, and applied to even very young children. In disciplining
a child, an admonition was first used, and the rod as a last
resort, with an explanation of the reasons for its use. There were
nursery rhymes and stories such as "Little Bo-Peep", "Jack and the
Beanstalk", "Tom Thumb", "Chicken Little", and Robin Hood and King
Arthur tales, and probably also "Puss in Boots", "Red Ridinghood",
"Cinderella", "Beauty and the Beast", "Bluebeard" and Aesop's
Fables. "Little Jack Horner" who sat in a corner was a satire on
the Puritan aversion to Christmas pudding and sense of conscious
virtue.
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