This article examines how mothers and fathers in Argentina dealt with the shift in child-rearing paradigm that occurred in the 1960s, drawing on the views of the parents themselves. The analysis is based on 1,100 questions posed by audiences in a series of conferences delivered by two renowned experts in the field, who championed the new parenting paradigm that advocated the psychologization of childcare. It also makes use of other sources, including books, articles, reports, and letters. On the one hand, the study reveals the complexity of the cultural change that affected ideas on child-rearing and family relations during that period. On the other, it shows that parents were key actors in this process and that they acted based on their own interpretations and experiences.
For pioneering studies, see Philippe Ariès, Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life (New York: Vintage Books, 1962); Barbara Ehrenreich and Deidre English, For Her Own Good: 150 Years of the Experts’ Advice to Women (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1978); and Jacques Donzelot, The Policing of Families (New York: Random House, 1979). For new approaches, see Julia Grant, Raising Baby by the Book: The Education of American Mothers (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998); and Ralph LaRossa, The Modernization of Fatherhood: A Social and Political History (University of Chicago Press, 1997), 53-89 and 144-69.
2.
Julieta Quilodrán , Un siglo de matrimonio en México ( Mexico: El Colegio de México, 2001); and Joana Maria Pedro, "A experiência com contraceptivos no Brasil: uma questão de geração,"Revista Brasileira de História23, no. 45 (2003): 239-60.
3.
Eric Zolov, Refried Elvis: The Rise of the Mexican Counterculture (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1999); Lessie Jo Frazier and Deborah Cohen, "Defining the Space of Mexico ’68: Heroic Masculinity in the Prison and ‘Women’ in the Street," Hispanic American Historical Review 83, no. 4 (2003): 617-20; and Victoria Langland, "Il est interdit d’interdire: The Transnational Experience of 1968 in Brazil," Estudios interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe 17, no. 1 (January-June 2006): 61-81.
4.
For an overview, see José Luis Moreno, "Familia e ilegitimidad en perspectiva: reflexiones a partir del caso rioplatense," in La familia. Campo de investigación interdisciplinario. Teoría, métodos y fuentes, ed. María Bjerg and Roxana Boixadós (Quilmes: Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, 2004), 133-70. For a view of the twentieth century, see, for example, Marcela Nari, Las políticas de la maternidad y maternalismo político, Buenos Aires (1890-1940) (Buenos Aires: Biblos, 2004); Donna Guy, El sexo peligroso. La prostitución legal en Buenos Aires (1875-1955) (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1994); and Isabella Cosse, Estigmas de nacimiento. Peronismo y orden familiar (1946-1955) (Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2006).
5.
Edith Pantelides, "La fecundidad argentina desde mediados del siglo XX," in Cuaderno del Cenep No. 41 (Buenos Aires: CENEP, 1981), 3-12; Victoria Mazzeo, "Situación demográfica de la Capital Federal," in Serie Análisis Demográfico (Buenos Aires: INDEC, 1997), 15; and Hernán Otero, "La transición demográfica argentina a debate. Una perspectiva espacial de las explicaciones ideacionales, económicas y político-institucionales," in El mosaico argentino. Modelos y representaciones del espacio y de la población, siglos XIX y XX, ed. Hernán Otero (Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 2004), 71-171.
6.
Bearing in mind the differences in cases and how it is used here, the term "domesticity" was suggested to the author by her reading of Leonore Davidoff’s and Catherine Hall’s Family Fortunes. Men and Women of the English Middle Class 1780-1850 (London and New York: Routledge, 2002) and Mary Jo Maynes’s "Cultura de clase e imágenes de la vida familiar," in Historia de la Familia Europea. La vida familiar desde la Revolución Francesa hasta la Primera Guerra Mundial (1789-1913), vol. 2, ed. David Kertzer and Marzio Barbagli (Barcelona: Paidós, 2003), 297-337.
7.
Eduardo Míguez, "Familias de clase media: la formación de un modelo," in Historia de la vida privada en Argentina. La Argentina plural (1870-1930), ed. Fernando Devoto and Marta Madero (Buenos Aires: Santillana, 1999), 21-46 and Nari, Las políticas de la maternidad y maternalismo político, 55-71.
8.
Gino Germani, Estructura Social de la Argentina, 1st ed. (Buenos Aires : Raigal, 1955; Buenos Aires: Solar, 1987), 149.
9.
On the subject of out-of-wedlock births, see Susana Torrado, Historia de la familia en la Argentina moderna (Buenos Aires: Ediciones de la Flor, 2003), 341. The figure for Buenos Aires was calculated by the author with data from the Buenos Aires statistics journal, Revista de Estadística de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires (1962), 9. On the housing situation, see Rosa Aboy, "Arquitecturas de la vida doméstica. Familia y vivienda en Buenos Aires, 1914-1960," Anuario IEHS 23, in press. These analyses contradict the view by Gino Germani, who posits that the nuclear model spread quickly (Germani, Estructura Social de la Argentina, 53). See, also, Nari, Las políticas de la maternidad y maternalismo político; Guy, El sexo peligroso; Cosse, Estigmas de nacimiento; and Dora Barrancos, Mujeres en la sociedad argentina. Una historia de cinco siglos (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 2007).
10.
Catalina Wainerman, La vida cotidiana en las nuevas familias. ¿Una revolución estancada? (Buenos Aires: Lumiere, 2005); and Isabella Cosse, "Familia, pareja y sexualidad en Buenos Aires (1950-1975) Patrones, convenciones y modelos en una época de cambio cultural" (PhD diss., Universidad de San Andrés, Buenos Aires, 2008). For an overview on contemporary perspectives of the changes, see Catalina Wainerman and Rosa Geldstein, "Viviendo en familia: ayer y hoy," in Vivir en familia, ed. Catalina Wainerman (Buenos Aires: UNICEF/Losada, 1994), 183-231; and Elizabeth Jelin, "The Family in Argentina. Modernity, Economic Crisis, and Politics," in Handbook of World Families, ed. Bert Adams and Jan Trost (London: Sage, 2005), 391-413.
11.
Hugo Vezzetti, Aventuras de Freud en el país de los argentinos (Buenos Aires: Paidós, 1996); Mariano Plotkin, Freud en las pampas (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 2003), 169-75; Marcela Borinsky, "Todo reside en saber qué es un niño. Aportes para una historia de la divulgación de las prácticas de crianza en la Argentina," in Anuario de Investigaciones 2, no. 13 (September 2006): 117-26.
12.
María del Carmen Feijoo and Marcela Nari, "Women in Argentina during the 1960s," in Latin American Perspectives 23, no. 1 (Winter 1996): 7-27; Karina Felitti, "El placer de elegir. Anticoncepción y liberación sexual en la década del sesenta," in Historia de las mujeres en la Argentina. Siglo XX, ed. Fernanda Gil Lozano, Valeria Silvina Pita, and María Gabriela Ini (Buenos Aires: Taurus, 2000), 155-71; Plotkin, Freud en las pampas, 149-172; and Cosse, "Familia, pareja y sexualidad en Buenos Aires (1950-1975)"; and Valeria Manzano, "Blue Jean Generation: Youth, Gender, and Sexuality in Buenos Aires (1958-1975)," Journal of Social History (Spring 2009): 103-22.
13.
Oscar Terán, Nuestros años 60. La formación de la nueva izquierda intelectual argentina, 1956-1966 (Buenos Aires: El Cielo por Asalto, 1993); and Valeria Manzano, "Sexualizing Youth: Morality Campaigns and Representations of Youth in Early-1960s Buenos Aires," Journal of the History of Sexuality 14, no. 4 (October 2005): 433-61.
14.
For exceptions, see Karina Felitti, Regulación de la natalidad en la historia argentina reciente (1960-1987). Discursos y experiencias (PhD diss., School of Philosophy and Literature, University of Buenos Aires, 2009). See also Cosse, "Familia, pareja y sexualidad en Buenos Aires (1950-1975)," and Valeria Manzano, "Ella se va de casa: fugas de chicas ‘Dolce Vita’ y drama social en la Buenos Aires de los tempranos 1960" (paper presented at VIII Jornadas Interescuelas y/o Departamentos de Historia Workshop, September 19-22, 2007, National University of Tucumán); and Manzano, "Blue Jean Generation," 103-22; Inés Pérez, "El trabajo doméstico y la mecanización del hogar: discursos, experiencias, representaciones. Mar del Plata en los años sesenta" (paper presented at Jornadas Descubrimiento e invención de la infancia. Debates, enfoques y encuentros interdisciplinarios Workshop, Institute of History and Social Studies, Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Tandil, April 16 and 17, 2009).
15.
This lack of accuracy, combined with the fact that no two talks dealt with the same exact topics, hinders a diachronic analysis, which would have provided insight into the changes in the audiences’ positions over time.
16.
For a discussion on how this notion of child-rearing was put into question, see Grant, Raising Baby by the Book, 4.
17.
Eva Giberti File (EGF), Correspondence Folder (CF), Letter from Julio V. to Eva Giberti (EG), Buenos Aires, July 20, 1962. To preserve anonymity, the sender’s last name (if included in the documentation) has been omitted, except in the case of institutional correspondence.
18.
Borinsky, "Todo reside en saber qué es un niño," 117-26.
19.
Nari, Las políticas de la maternidad y maternalismo político, 114-21; Borinsky, "Todo reside en saber qué es un niño," 117-26. Hugo Vezzetti, Aventuras de Freud en el país de los argentinos (Buenos Aires: Paidós, 1996); Mariano Plotkin, Freud en las Pampas (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 2003), 169-75; Cosse, "Familia, pareja y sexualidad en Buenos Aires (1950-1975)."
20.
Ana Diamant, ed., Florencio Enrique Juan Escardó (Buenos Aires: Facultad de Psicología, 1993); Cecilia Rustoyburu (UBA/UNMP), "Padres extremosos y niños con derechos de beligerancia. Los consejos de crianza de la Nueva Pediatría" (paper presented at Historia de la infancia en Argentina, 1880-1960 Workshop, UnGS-UdeSA, Los Polvorines, November 18, 2008); Florencio Escardó, Anatomía de la familia, 2nd ed. (Buenos Aires: El Ateneo, 1954) and Sexología de la familia, 2nd ed. (Buenos Aires: El Ateneo, 1961).
21.
"Doctor Florencio Escardó. Médico, defensor de niños," Para Ti, July 17, 1967, 2349: 12-13; Florencio Escardó, Mis padres y yo: Nueva puericultura para mamas, 4th ed. (Buenos Aires: Roberto O. Antonio Editores, 1968), 214, 330-46; and Escardó, Anatomía de la familia, 11-14.
22.
Author’s interview with Eva Giberti, Buenos Aires, December 12, 2004, in Isabella Cosse, "La nueva paternidad en los sectores medios porteños. Cambios y continuidades entre 1950 y 1970," Estudios de Población, Revista de la Asociación de Estudios de la Población Argentina 1, no. 1, in press.
23.
Eva Giberti, Escuela para padres, 1st ed. (Buenos Aires: Editorial Campano, [1961] 1963), 1:24-25, 52-53, 69, 259, and 262, and 2:212-14. And by the same author, Adolescencia y educación sexual, 1st ed. (Buenos Aires: Roberto O. Antonio Editores, [1969] 1977).
24.
On parenting schools in the United States, see Grant, Raising Baby by the Book, 136-200. On parenting schools in France, see Cecilia Rustoyburu, "Los niños y los padres al diván. Los consejos sobre crianza de la Escuela para Padres" (paper presented at Primera Reunión de Trabajo: Los 60 de otra manera: vida cotidiana, género y sexualidades en la Argentina, Universidad de San Andrés, Buenos Aires, October 30, 2008).
25.
Author’s interview with Eva Giberti, Buenos Aires, December 12, 2004.
26.
On the use of a journalistic style, see Plotkin, Freud en las pampas, 169-75. The school’s charter is available in EGF-Parenting School Folder (PSF), "Estatutos de la Escuela para padres de la cátedra de pediatría de la Facultad de Medicina," (mimeographed text, 1967).
27.
Isabella Cosse, "Cultura y sexualidad en la Argentina de los 60: usos y resignificaciones de la experiencia trasnacional," Estudios interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe, 17, no. 1 (January-June 2006): 39-60; EGF-News Clippings Folder (NCF), "TV," Radiolandia, Buenos Aires, December 13, 1968 and "Tribunal de Apelaciones," Radiolandia, Buenos Aires, March 13, 1970 (neither article is paginated).
28.
Author’s interview with Eva Giberti, Buenos Aires, December 12, 2004; "Doctor Florencio Escardó. Médico, defensor de niños," 12-13.
29.
Ana Diamant , La invención de una profesión: desde una carrera hacia las prácticas (PhD diss., FLAC-SO Argentina, 2007), 130-32.
30.
EGF-CF, Letter from Orlando José Farao, secretary of the Liga de Padres de Familia, to EG, Buenos Aires, May 30, 1960; Letter from Alejandro Pujol, Club de Rotarios de Nueva Chicago, to EG, Buenos Aires, March 18, 1960. The letters also reveal a significant involvement of Jewish organizations. The institutions identified are: the Children’s Hospital, SOCAM (equipment factory), ICANA, the Kraft Auditorium (possibly hired by another institution), Wobron (clutch factory), and three Jewish institutions: the Sholem Aleijem schools (in three occasions), the Hertzl school, and another unidentified institution.
31.
EGF-PSF, Eva Giberti, "Grupos de orientación de parejas," Revista Latinoamericana de Psicología 3, no. 2 (1971): 145-61. Enrique Pichon Rivière, in collaboration with José Bleger, David Liberman, and Eduardo Rolla, "Técnica de los grupos operativos" and "Historia de la Técnica de los grupos operativos," in Enrique Pichon Riviére, El proceso grupal. Del psicoanálisis a la psicología social 1 (Buenos Aires: Nueva Visión, [1960] 2008), 107-20 and 233-46.
32.
EGF-PSF-Eva Giberti, "Técnicas para la educación sexual de la comunidad," mimeographed text, circa 1967. Author’s interview with Eva Giberti, Buenos Aires, December 12, 2004; EGF-CF, letter from Sara to EG, Buenos Aires, April 13, 1961 and letter from MM to EG, Buenos Aires, September 2, 1959.
33.
EGF-PSF, Envelope B2 (1962), p. 35; AEF-CF, Letter from Martín L. to EG, Buenos Aires, September 2, 1963. On the maternalization of women, see Nari, Las políticas de la maternidad y maternalismo político.
34.
EGF-Questions Folder (QF), Envelope 6E (1964), p. 5.
35.
Eva Giberti, Escuela para padres, 1: 31, 61, 45, 181; 102-06, 135-44, and 91-192, and 3:121-41; Also by the same author, Adolescencia y Educación Sexual, 338-45.
36.
EGF-QF, Envelope EF1E (1959), p. 1; Envelope 7E (1964), p. 29; Envelope B2 (1962), pp. 24 and 42; Envelope 6E (1964), pp. 8 and 17; Envelope B6E; Envelope B, Florencio Escardó (1965-1968), p. 2.
37.
Grant, Raising Baby by the Book, 4.
38.
One of the two activities outside the capital was held in San Nicolás (province of Buenos Aires), circa 1973, and the other in Posadas (province of Formosa), in 1971, as per EGF-QF.
39.
EGF-QF. Author’s own processing.
40.
EGF-QF. Author’s own processing and Envelope B10E (circa 1966), pp. 16 and 34.
41.
Enrique Pichon Rivière, "Tratamiento de grupos familiares: psicoterapia colectiva," in Rivière, El proceso grupal, 57-74; Giberti, Adolescencia y educación sexual, 65-67, 97-98, and 116-18.
42.
Giberti, Escuela para padres, 1:60; 2:10-12 and 66-67.
43.
EGF-QF, Envelope H (undated), p. 11 and Envelope 7E (1964), p. 64.
44.
EGF-QF, Envelope E1E (1959), p. 23 and Envelope 6E (1964), p. 30.
45.
EGF-QF, Envelope E1E (1959), p. 2.
46.
EGF-QF, Envelope EF1E (circa 1959), p. 23.
47.
EGF-QF, Envelope D1E (circa 1965), p. 21; Envelope E43 (1967), p. 6 and Envelope 6E (1964), p. 39.
48.
EGF-QF, Envelope 7E (1964), p. 35 and Envelope E4E (1967), p. 10.
49.
EGF-QF, Envelope 6E (Sholem Aleijeim 1964), p. 32.
50.
Ibid., 31.
51.
Envelope 6E (Sholem Aleijeim 1964), p. 38.
52.
EGF-QF. Author’s own processing.
53.
Escardó, Mis padres y yo, 356-458. For Eva Giberti’s views, see Plotkin, Freud en las pampas, 169-75, and Isabella Cosse, "Progenitores y adolescentes en la encrucijada de los cambios de los años sesenta. La mirada de Eva Giberti," Revista Escuela de Historia (in press).
54.
EGF-QF, Envelope B4E (circa 1966), pp. 56, 63, 68 and Envelope E1E (1972), p. 60.
55.
EGF-QF, Envelope B4E (circa 1966), p. 70.
56.
Escardó, Mis padres y yo, 404 and EGF-PSF, Eva Giberti, "Técnicas para la educación sexual de la comunidad" (mimeographed text, circa 1967).
57.
EGF-QF, Envelope B2E (Posadas, 1971), p. 23 and Envelope B4E (circa 1966), p. 24. 58. EGF-QF, Envelope B4E (circa 1966), pp. 8, 22 and 76.
58.
EGF-CF, Letter from Dora A. F. to E. G., Buenos Aires, October 11, 1960.
59.
EGF-QF, Envelope B4E (circa 1966), p. 43.
60.
Envelope B4E (circa 1966), p. 39; Envelope B5E (circa 1965), p. 21.
61.
EGF-CF, letter from Héctor S. to E. G., Buenos Aires, January 3, 1960. Similarly, there were questions about how to "deal with shocked reactions from other parents" or how to convince children not to tell their peers about what they had been taught; EGF-CF, Envelope B4E (circa 1966), pp. 10 and 38.
