The contribution has three parts. At first epistemological and methodological questions are addressed to the subject ‘childhood’. Secondly the contents of the main findings of Aries (“L’enfant et la vie familiale sous l’ ancien regime”; 1960) and deMause (“The History of Childhood”, 1974) are questioned with respect to their breadth of validity for the subject ‘childhood’. Thirdly anthropological data, derived from biological anthropology and ethnology, were taken in order to correct partly the picture of the history of childhood.