4 ms·

The last photo of the man being affectionate with his young daughter is surprising to me. All my life, I've thought that men born before 1950, like my father, j

The last photo of the man being affectionate with his young daughter is surprising to me. All my life, I've thought that men born before 1950, like my father, just didn't do that sort of thing. And yet here is a man born a hundred years earlier doing just that.

robbintt 5y ago
I believe that people have been exactly like us for tens or hundreds of generations.
- cj9 5y ago
  Far further back still in so many ways https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv6Tuq1Dkfk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv6Tuq1Dkfk
TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
That’s remarkable comment that really highlights for me how different everyone’s experience can be. My father was born in the early 40s and was apparently nothing like your father. But those two photos are definitely the best for me.
tagoregrtst 5y ago
A lot of our common conceptions of the past are flat out wrong. Often deliberate fabrications for political ends. Why wouldn't fathers, in general, be affectionate? The Bible (to take a very old book) if full of fatherly affection. Take the story of Abraham and his son to be sacrificed. The story has always been shocking because the reader knows the son was so wanted and loved and empathizes. Even the prejudice isn't universal. Italians don't have this conception of cold fathers 100 years ago. Could it be a protestant thing? Possibly except the Norwegians in this set are themselves Protestants. I would chalk up the image of a cold, distant father, to the generational shock of 31 years of slaughter in Europe (1914-1945). Some blame Bismarck and his quest to make perfect soldiers through universal education (and the export of the Prussian model). But, really, the past is not as bad as it is depicted. Life was tougher, but there was love, laughter, loyalty, beauty, and friendship. I suspect more so than today.
- nickpp 5y ago
  - tagoregrtst 5y ago
    Lol. Touche It might be a fabrication, but then its fantasy and not deliberate. You see, it really is the other way around with respect to my comment. My suspicions about the past are what drives me politically. Obviously we are better than our forefathers in many things - listing them would be trite. But, on the whole, are we better off (never mind better)? These pictures were taken before industrialized genocide, world wars, atomic weapons, the mass adoption and molding of our cities around the automobile. Right now every living creature on earth is on a knife’s edge of total destruction through nuclear or environmental disaster. If this is, on the whole, industrial progress I don't want it.
    - throw10920 5y ago
      Not just touche - GP has an agenda. From their bio: > Respecting Nature's laws and abhorring religions.
      - tagoregrtst 5y ago
        That’s OK, it was still a good jab
      - nickpp 5y ago
        Hmm I do not remember having any agenda when I wrote that in my bio. But please, enlighten me: what do my words make you think of?
- reedjosh 5y ago
  I think politics are a big part, but I've been wondering a lot lately how much of this was leaded gasoline as well. Crime waves and angry parents could easily have been lead poisoning.
  - 5y ago
kfarr 5y ago
That photo stuck with me too. Such tender care, chilling with his kid and the dog at a park. That one photo made me feel more connected to humans of that past more than other historic photos I've seen. (EDIT) Oh man there's an even more adorable pic of them rolling around too! https://www.boredpanda.com/spy-camera-secret-street-photography-carl-stormer-norway/?media_id=1056251 https://www.boredpanda.com/spy-camera-secret-street-photogra...
mensetmanusman 5y ago
Post ww2 lots of parenting books said that you had to be super strict and harsh with your children, or else they would lose the next war with Russia or whoever because they would turn out soft. It’s really fascinating, but losing millions of fathers in the war and then the post trauma strict parenting have had knock on effects we are still dealing with.
- jbay808 5y ago
  I bet that the trauma was even stronger in the USSR, which lost unfathomable numbers, and that maybe that generational trauma -- even moreso than communism -- resulted in the hawkish, militaristic, paranoid, confrontational, guns-before-butter standoff across the iron curtain throughout the cold war and which I think even lingers today.
  - brabel 5y ago
    I know people that come from the USSR... they universally fear war even today and think that's a realistic possibility in the near future. Most people living today have grandparents who can still recall the horrors of WWII... they lost a much larger share of their population to the war than all countries in the West (I think more USSR citizens died in the war than in all other countries combined). Nazis burning entire villages to kill off the local population (so the region could be settled by Germans later), they claim all villagers were locked up in the local church and then they set fire on it... people tried hiding in the forrests when they knew the army was coming and had to eat grass and leaves to survive. They became really harsh people, and the population of most of Russia and current-day Belarus, Poland, Ukraine etc have a very characteristic attitude towards other people and countries that's completely contaminated by those memories.
    - burntoutfire 5y ago
      Yup, exactly that. Polish literary Nobel laureate Czesław Miłosz was an immigrant to the US around 1946-1950 period, and he noted that what struck him in the US was that an average American is probably 10x kinder and nicer person than an average Pole. To him, the Americans were almost like children, happy and innocent, unaffected by the horrors of this world that the Polish people were subjected to. As Nietzche noted - what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and Poles (and Russians, Ukrainians, Belorusians) that survived the war and communism are pretty tough as a result - but at the cost of having a crushed sprit and, quite often, losing hope in humanity.
watwut 5y ago
Nah, the ideologies of fatherhood change over time all the time. And even in 1950, many dads would show affection to their children. Even if they would see child caring is female thing, many would be kiss and show love to them. Also, in small easter european democracies before communism, politician had to kiss kids and at least pretends he likes them. Otherwise people assumed he is bad person. They valued family a lot.
socialdemocrat 5y ago
One has to keep in mind and that a lot of what people think about is he past is from Britain due to its dominance. Britain has long had a very strict form of child raising. That has been part of the culture. In Norway, where this is from, one generally believed in milder treatment of both children and prisoners than British. Physical punishment got banned much earlier. My mother who grew up in the 1950s Norway always describe her father as exceptionally kind. He would spend time in the basement making doll house and doll furniture for my mother and her sister. He did not have much money but would get my mom oil paint so she could learn to paint. If any of the boys in her street was mean to my mom or her sister, her dad would be there right on the spot.
ginko 5y ago
>The last photo of the man being affectionate with his young daughter is surprising to me. Not 100% sure either way, but that may also be his son. Young boys also wore dress-like clothing during those times.

robbintt 5y ago

I believe that people have been exactly like us for tens or hundreds of generations.

cj9 5y ago
Far further back still in so many ways https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv6Tuq1Dkfk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv6Tuq1Dkfk

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago

That’s remarkable comment that really highlights for me how different everyone’s experience can be. My father was born in the early 40s and was apparently nothing like your father. But those two photos are definitely the best for me.

tagoregrtst 5y ago

A lot of our common conceptions of the past are flat out wrong. Often deliberate fabrications for political ends. Why wouldn't fathers, in general, be affectionate? The Bible (to take a very old book) if full of fatherly affection. Take the story of Abraham and his son to be sacrificed. The story has always been shocking because the reader knows the son was so wanted and loved and empathizes. Even the prejudice isn't universal. Italians don't have this conception of cold fathers 100 years ago. Could it be a protestant thing? Possibly except the Norwegians in this set are themselves Protestants. I would chalk up the image of a cold, distant father, to the generational shock of 31 years of slaughter in Europe (1914-1945). Some blame Bismarck and his quest to make perfect soldiers through universal education (and the export of the Prussian model). But, really, the past is not as bad as it is depicted. Life was tougher, but there was love, laughter, loyalty, beauty, and friendship. I suspect more so than today.

nickpp 5y ago
- tagoregrtst 5y ago
  Lol. Touche It might be a fabrication, but then its fantasy and not deliberate. You see, it really is the other way around with respect to my comment. My suspicions about the past are what drives me politically. Obviously we are better than our forefathers in many things - listing them would be trite. But, on the whole, are we better off (never mind better)? These pictures were taken before industrialized genocide, world wars, atomic weapons, the mass adoption and molding of our cities around the automobile. Right now every living creature on earth is on a knife’s edge of total destruction through nuclear or environmental disaster. If this is, on the whole, industrial progress I don't want it.
  - throw10920 5y ago
    Not just touche - GP has an agenda. From their bio: > Respecting Nature's laws and abhorring religions.
    - tagoregrtst 5y ago
      That’s OK, it was still a good jab
    - nickpp 5y ago
      Hmm I do not remember having any agenda when I wrote that in my bio. But please, enlighten me: what do my words make you think of?
reedjosh 5y ago
I think politics are a big part, but I've been wondering a lot lately how much of this was leaded gasoline as well. Crime waves and angry parents could easily have been lead poisoning.
- 5y ago

kfarr 5y ago

That photo stuck with me too. Such tender care, chilling with his kid and the dog at a park. That one photo made me feel more connected to humans of that past more than other historic photos I've seen. (EDIT) Oh man there's an even more adorable pic of them rolling around too! https://www.boredpanda.com/spy-camera-secret-street-photography-carl-stormer-norway/?media_id=1056251 https://www.boredpanda.com/spy-camera-secret-street-photogra...

mensetmanusman 5y ago

Post ww2 lots of parenting books said that you had to be super strict and harsh with your children, or else they would lose the next war with Russia or whoever because they would turn out soft. It’s really fascinating, but losing millions of fathers in the war and then the post trauma strict parenting have had knock on effects we are still dealing with.

jbay808 5y ago
I bet that the trauma was even stronger in the USSR, which lost unfathomable numbers, and that maybe that generational trauma -- even moreso than communism -- resulted in the hawkish, militaristic, paranoid, confrontational, guns-before-butter standoff across the iron curtain throughout the cold war and which I think even lingers today.
- brabel 5y ago
  I know people that come from the USSR... they universally fear war even today and think that's a realistic possibility in the near future. Most people living today have grandparents who can still recall the horrors of WWII... they lost a much larger share of their population to the war than all countries in the West (I think more USSR citizens died in the war than in all other countries combined). Nazis burning entire villages to kill off the local population (so the region could be settled by Germans later), they claim all villagers were locked up in the local church and then they set fire on it... people tried hiding in the forrests when they knew the army was coming and had to eat grass and leaves to survive. They became really harsh people, and the population of most of Russia and current-day Belarus, Poland, Ukraine etc have a very characteristic attitude towards other people and countries that's completely contaminated by those memories.
  - burntoutfire 5y ago
    Yup, exactly that. Polish literary Nobel laureate Czesław Miłosz was an immigrant to the US around 1946-1950 period, and he noted that what struck him in the US was that an average American is probably 10x kinder and nicer person than an average Pole. To him, the Americans were almost like children, happy and innocent, unaffected by the horrors of this world that the Polish people were subjected to. As Nietzche noted - what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and Poles (and Russians, Ukrainians, Belorusians) that survived the war and communism are pretty tough as a result - but at the cost of having a crushed sprit and, quite often, losing hope in humanity.

watwut 5y ago

Nah, the ideologies of fatherhood change over time all the time. And even in 1950, many dads would show affection to their children. Even if they would see child caring is female thing, many would be kiss and show love to them. Also, in small easter european democracies before communism, politician had to kiss kids and at least pretends he likes them. Otherwise people assumed he is bad person. They valued family a lot.

socialdemocrat 5y ago

One has to keep in mind and that a lot of what people think about is he past is from Britain due to its dominance. Britain has long had a very strict form of child raising. That has been part of the culture. In Norway, where this is from, one generally believed in milder treatment of both children and prisoners than British. Physical punishment got banned much earlier. My mother who grew up in the 1950s Norway always describe her father as exceptionally kind. He would spend time in the basement making doll house and doll furniture for my mother and her sister. He did not have much money but would get my mom oil paint so she could learn to paint. If any of the boys in her street was mean to my mom or her sister, her dad would be there right on the spot.

ginko 5y ago

>The last photo of the man being affectionate with his young daughter is surprising to me. Not 100% sure either way, but that may also be his son. Young boys also wore dress-like clothing during those times.