Chapter 2 considers the experience of being brought up in a village in Europe during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It begins with debates among historians in this area, and the social conditions in villages, especially the age structure of the population and the difficulty of feeding increasing numbers of people. It also outlines the framework for a village childhood, in the form of the peasant family and the rural community. The next part of the chapter looks at infancy. It notes the relatively high level of infant mortality, and the problems associated with keeping infants alive. This includes discussion of feeding practices, swaddling and popular medicine, as well as infanticide and responses to infant death. The final section focuses on the peasant childhood, with discussion of material conditions, orphans and parent-child relations.