Colonial History

My name is Christopher Clark (1681-1754 ) and I live within the St Peters Parish , New Kent County Virginia between the 1600 's to the early 1700 's with my wife Penelope Johnson (1684-1741 ) and our two sons . We are farmers and life is very hard . Our home is 2 rooms and if compared to modern times would be considered , small , dark and crowded . It is unpainted and unadorned . The furniture and utensils are sparse and crudely made . Chairs are rare and if we had one it would be reserved for me , the head

of the house . Usually individuals sit , sleep and eat on benches or planks . My dining table , which is a term used only in modern times , is made of two boards covered with a board cloth . We have no inside toilets or plumbing we instead use an outside privy . Our clothes are crude and since soap is expensive we rarely wash them and so we tend to be foul-smelling and infested with vermin

The food is plentiful . Dinning on corn served as bread , hominy pancakes and in various other ways and is our chief staple of food . But we also have plenty of beef , pork , and game . My wife boils the meat with various vegetables over an open fire . Because my wife is white she does not work in the fields . Her duties include household maintenance and this includes tending to farm animals , making butter and cheese pickling and preserving , spinning and sewing and of course caring for the children . We have strict discipline for our children and because we cannot afford to send our children to school they are home schooled by Penelope . But still our children work around the home before any schooling is conducted . My children are treated like little adults after the age of 6 . They dress like me and I do not understand the concept of the term of adolescent . We emphasize discipline rather than love and support to our children . Since I am a farmer /home craftsman I spend all of my day in the household , unlike the city folk who work in factory or offices

My views of my marriage and my childrearing is heavily influenced by English and continental European traditions . I am a Calvinist and my belief is that each person is to keep his or her proper place in God 's social design such as servant before master , non-church before church member , idler before working man , wife before husband , child before adult . This system pushes supervision , because each master is legally accountable for overseeing the behavior of designated subordinates . It is very crucial to the maintenance of religion and social to have proper child-rearing . My belief is that Godly parents are to make sure that their unstaid and young charges do not become addicted to the greasy sensuality of play such as rattles , baubles and such toyish stuff . It is the responsibility of the parent according to our Pilgrim pastor John Robinson to crush the child 's...