ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book is concerned with the issue of delegated mothering of the privileged child. Wet nursing was used for the many thousands of unwanted babies who were abandoned at birth. It is more common to find that abandoned children are thought about as an economic burden upon the state, as is shown in the shifting English Poor Laws, and the chief social concern has been to feed them as cheaply as possible. Texts about the history of child-rearing reveal a constant dialectical tension between those people believes that the employment of wet nurses and nannies was a good thing and those people believes it could disrupt the bonds between parents and their children. This unresolved argument has led to the suggestion that one can discern a 'history of emotions' that confronts every parent when a child is born.
