To put it mildly, a lot has changed since Queen Victoria signed the Constitution Act in 1867. We?re no longer giving our kids cod liver oil and spanking is now a criminal offence. But while we haven?t gotten parenting completely figured out yet, a quick flip through the parenting manuals of yesteryear makes it clear just how much Canadian parents have changed in a century and a half. Here?s a timeline of the good, the bad and the downright strange.
The ?Birth? of a Nation: 1867 to the First World War

The year was 1867. Virtually overnight, medicine had gone from leeches and bloodletting to vaccines and germ theory, thanks to medical pioneers such as Louis Pasteur and Florence Nightingale. It was the same in the parenting world, where midwives were rapidly losing ground to university-trained physicians. Spells and incantations were replaced by sterilized metal tools and big textbooks. Armed with brand new knowledge of vaccines, bacteria and natural selection, the parenting guides of the day adopted this mode of rational thinking. 1. No showers during pregnancy. According to English physician P.H Chavasse, whose widely popular books on parenthood were published around the world, ?a shower in pregnancy give too great a shock and might induce a miscarriage,? making baths the order of the day.
2. Do not take long walks while pregnant. Medical professionals advised pregnant women to be extremely cautious: Long walks, horseback riding, sex, dancing and riding in a carriage over a...