Fun research question
Nov. 9th, 2008 10:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
connaticHeidi and I were out walking yesterday when we saw a cement truck. I said that I'd always been fascinated by cement trucks as a kid, to which she replied that an obsession with trucks and heavy machinery must be coded on the Y chromosome :-)
This leads to an interesting question, though: in a world before museums with dinosaurs, before trucks, locomotives, airplanes other big machines - what were boys obsessed with? Heidi thinks they were probably too busy working to have time for that, but I am not sure - before the Industrial Revolution (and especially before the Reformation) the pace of life was not so crazy that kids didn't have time to play or days off.
I am afraid there will be very few sources that describe kids' fascinations in the Middle Ages and before (there's little enough on toys and play), but it's an interesting question.
This leads to an interesting question, though: in a world before museums with dinosaurs, before trucks, locomotives, airplanes other big machines - what were boys obsessed with? Heidi thinks they were probably too busy working to have time for that, but I am not sure - before the Industrial Revolution (and especially before the Reformation) the pace of life was not so crazy that kids didn't have time to play or days off.
I am afraid there will be very few sources that describe kids' fascinations in the Middle Ages and before (there's little enough on toys and play), but it's an interesting question.
