File:CARRYING CHILDREN. (1910) - illustration - page 227.png

English: Illustration from page 227 of CARRYING CHILDREN..
Caption: "CARRYING CHILDREN. Quote: Japanese babies are at first carried in arms. When they fall asleep in the daytime, they are laid on a bed in a room where they can be watched. They get early used to noise, and slumber on though the watchers may talk aloud to each other. When they are a month or more old, they are carried not only in arms, but on the back as well. In the latter case, the child is tied by a long piece of bleached cotton which is first passed under its arms and over the nurse’s shoulders and after crossing in front, one end is passed under the girl’s arm and over the child’s thighs and tied at the side to the other end. Thus, the piece is carried over the child’s back in parallel lines and crosses on the nurse’s breast. In cold weather, the nurse and her charge are covered with a kind of haori, thickly wadded, before being tied with the cotton. It keeps them both warm, while the child’s breast and stomach are even better protected by the contact of the nurse’s back. Very young babies are tied down straight with their legs close together; but when they are older, they ride astride and their feet dangle on either side. The nurse who is specially engaged for the purpose is twelve or thirteen years old; but in poor families the elder brother or sister takes her place. Little girls are often to be seen in the streets, carrying on their backs sisters and brothers only a year or two younger than themselves, whose feet, as they dangle, almost trail on the ground. At first the girls can hardly walk with such burdens; but they soon get used to them, and they run, romp, and dance with their companions without much concern for their charges, who are often put in very uncomfortable positions. These, however, fare worse when they are on their brothers’ backs; for these urchins, being rougher and more careless than their sisters, fly kites, climb up trees, flourish bamboo poles to catch cicadas, run after dragon-flies, and even snowball one another, utterly regardless of the discomfort they occasion their charges, who, if they cry, are knocked with the back of the head, and seem soon to become habituated to the dangers they run through the recklessness of their carriers. This manner of carrying on the back is only possible with Japanese clothes, for the knot of the obi behind prevents the child from slipping down; and it would be difficult to try this method with European clothes, with men’s because the tying down of the coat would hamper the movement of the arms, and with women’s because of the multiplicity of pins at the neck and the waist. Nurses tie a towel round their heads so as not to let their back-hair fall on the babies’ faces. When the children are older and able to walk, they are carried without being tied down, for they can catch hold by the shoulders or by putting their arms loosely round the nurse’s neck, while they are kept from slipping by the nurse’s passing her hands under them.""