The Two Sided Childhood For two groups of people who came to the new world in the seventeenth century, for religious freedom, Quakers and Puritans were quite different. This difference can be accounted for in their religious views that pushed them to create almost opposite societies of equality and freedom and patriarchy and dependence. Although they were similar in that they both disliked the ritualistic, hierarchical practices of the Church of England and both emphasized simplicity in lifestyle and worship. The Puritans felt that all of humanity was sinful and this influenced how their society functioned. A big point of focus for puritans were their children. “They were convinced that molding children through proper child rearing and education was the most…show more content… This was to make sure that Puritan values were ingrained in their heads at a young age.In a Puritan family the father was in charge of the childrens education in reading and in religion and he even chose who his children could marry. The father had all this power in the family due to his control of the land and his power to give it away to his children. Unlike England, the colonies had ample amounts of “unused land” (land that they pushed Native Americans off of) that allowed them to run their society very differently. Where once only the eldest child would get land now every child got land, even the daughters. It allowed them to be a lot more patriarchal than before. “a godly family: a patriarchal unit in which a man's authority over his wife, children, and servants was a part of an interlocking chain of authority extending from God to the lowliest creatures.” This idea was the backbone for the New England Puritan colony and it was enforced by the community making the patriarchy even stronger. It was a giant cycle: teach kids puritan values, father controls everything, father dies and power moves on to the son, repeat. These practices show us that the Puritans