Hello Class,
In this weeks blog I would like to talk about Spartan children and the way they grew up. In our society today, our parents have a say in everything we do until we are 18 years old. This was not the same for the Spartans! They only had control over their children until the age of 7! The picture below is an image of 7 year old children of today playing. I want you to keep that in mind as you read on about Spartan children.
Spartan girls and boys were removed from their homes at the age of 7. Girls were sent to school where they exercised, learned gymnastics and learned how to fight. The Spartans believed that the stronger the woman was,the stronger her baby would be.
Spartan boys were removed from their homes at the age of 7. The Spartan's believed that keeping a boy with his mother would make him weak.Once removed from their homes the boys started intense training every day. To make the boys tougher,they were forced to sleep on stiff cloth placed on the floor, wear little to no clothing and were made to go without shoes to toughen up their feet. Boys would get beatings from the older boys to toughen them up for future training.
To become a Spartan soldier, training had to start early. That is if you even made it to the training. When a child was born, soldiers would come inspect the baby to make sure the baby was strong enough according to Spartan standards. If the baby was not strong enough, he/she would be killed or turned into a slave.
Let's talk about it!
I want to hear what you have to say about growing up a Spartan! Something that interested me was finding out how young the Spartans started to train their soldiers! What is going on in your head? Write about it!
