ABSTRACT
The preceding chapter examined a diversity of perspectives on childhood images: historical, religious, anthropological, and psychological. This chapter examines the images of children and childrearing contained in a concrete cultural product: the proverb. Present throughout history and extending to all corners of the world, proverbs constitute a peculiar form of referring to reality and encoding it, as a well as an interesting medium for transmitting the points of view they contain. The topic of children and childrearing seems to be an obligatory subject in the proverbial lore of all countries, since there is no compilation of proverbs that does not include a specific category for children. To the extent possible, proverbs from many different countries are taken into consideration in this chapter in order to reflect the contents of international proverbial lore.
