What Psychohistory Teaches Us About Humanity’s Evolution

When we examine the grand arc of human history, the most overlooked yet transformative influence may be how societies have treated their children. Psychohistory—a field pioneered by thinkers like Lloyd deMause, Robin Grille, and Ludwig Janus—makes a compelling case: the emotional, psychological, and physical care given to children shapes not just individual lives, but the trajectory of entire civilizations.

At the 2025 Prenatal Wellness Virtual Summit, Carla Machado and I explored this theme in our presentation “The Fetal Origins of World History,” focusing on how early childhood experiences—including those in the womb—help mold the future of humanity.

The Six Childrearing Modes: A Journey Through Time Lloyd deMause identified six historical “childrearing modes” that illustrate humanity's slow and often painful evolution from cruelty to care:

1. Infanticidal Mode
Until the 4th century AD, infanticide was shockingly common. In Ancient Rome, children were seen as property—fathers had the legal right to kill their own offspring. Infanticide occurred not out of poverty, but as a form of population control or social custom. Across cultures—from the Chinese Qing dynasty to 19th-century India—female infants, in particular, were at risk. Child mutilation, sexual slavery, and ritual sacrifice were widespread. This dark chapter reveals how societies dehumanized the most vulnerable, often without remorse.

2. Abandoning Mode
With the rise of Judeo-Christian influence, killing children became taboo, but abandonment remained rampant. Foundling homes emerged in medieval Europe, but many children still died from neglect. Emotional detachment, rather than violence, defined this era. Most wealthy families would outsource breastfeeding to wetnurses, and poor families often swaddled their babies on a wooden board and hung them on the wall to keep them from getting on the way of adults. Parental love was seen as inconvenient or even damaging.

3. Ambivalent Mode
In the 14th to 18th centuries, children were no longer routinely discarded, but they were only accepted conditionally—if they conformed. Manuals promoted strict punishment, and the prevailing attitude was that children needed to be “beaten into virtue.” Emotional neglect remained the norm, and child labor, as well as sexual abuse were tragically widespread.

4. Intrusive Mode
Beginning in the 18th century, parents started to involve themselves more actively in their children’s lives. Influenced by thinkers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, there was growing criticism of swaddling and wet-nursing. Yet emotional manipulation and rigid discipline remained common. The emerging science of pediatrics focused more on controlling behavior than understanding it.

5. Socializing Mode
From the 19th to 20th centuries, the focus shifted toward training children to fit into society. Morality was rigidly defined, and parenting became a form of social engineering. Freud’s work helped expose the trauma of childhood sexual abuse, and legal protections for children slowly increased. Still, children’s emotional worlds were often dismissed, and their behavior tightly controlled.

6. Helping Mode
Since the 1960s, we’ve seen a revolution in parenting philosophy. Emphasis has shifted toward empathy, attachment, and emotional intelligence. Practices like home birth, breastfeeding on demand, and co-sleeping reflect a deeper respect for children’s needs. Pioneers like John Bowlby and more recently like Thomas Verny and David Chamberlain demonstrated the profound impact of early bonding on lifelong mental health. While challenges remain—such as daycare outsourcing and screen-based disconnection—the "Helping Mode" offers a vision of parenting rooted in love, not control.


Why This Matters
Now Psychohistory teaches us that societal violence doesn’t arise from ideology or genetics—it grows from the soil of childhood trauma. A nation does not become warlike overnight; it becomes so after decades of institutionalized neglect, abuse, and emotional disconnection in families and communities.

When we face modern crises—whether political polarization, ecological collapse, or mental health epidemics—we must ask: How have we been raising our children, from conception onward?

As deMause famously stated, “Mental life begins in the womb with a fetal drama which is remembered and elaborated upon by later childhood events, and this fetal drama is the basis for the history and culture of each age, as modified by evolving childrearing styles.” He also reminds us that “Every empathic act that helps a child become what he or she wants to become, every expression of love toward children, heals society and moves it in unexpected and wondrous new directions.”


The Way Forward
The history of childhood is a harrowing one—but it’s also a story of progress. We are just awakening from a nightmare of gigantic proportions and today’s parents enjoy a social freedom, as well as an access to knowledge, tools, and support systems that previous generations could not have imagined.

Parenting is not just intuitive, thus it needs to be taught and supported. With love, understanding, and conscious effort, we can raise generations that are not just functional—but flourishing.

In the end, the fate of our world begins not in politics or technology—but in the womb, in the crib, and in every tender moment between a child and a caregiver.

 

 

About the Author
Laura Uplinger is the Vice-President of ANEP Brazil (National Association for Prenatal Education). Since the late 1970s, she has been a proponent of the powerful influence of a mother’s inner life on the formation of her prenate. She often leads workshops and gives talks about prenatal parenting at conferences and webinars for birth professionals and the public at large in the Americas and Europe. She also addresses high schools and university students on the subject of prenatal and perinatal psychology. The name of one of her most effective workshops is "Pro Mundo Nascer Feliz" (For the World to be Born Happy).