Sidonie Matsner Gruenberg (1881–1974) was a

parenting Parenting or child rearing promotes and supports the physical, cognitive, social, emotional, and educational development from infancy to adulthood. Parenting refers to the intricacies of raising a child and not exclusively for a biologica ...

expert, writer, and director of the Child Study Association of America. In her 1912 book ''Your Child Today and Tomorrow'', Gruenberg popularized the idea of giving an allowance to children so they could understand how to spend it.

Life

Sidonie Gruenberg was born in

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

and educated in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

and

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. She married Benjamin Gruenberg, a biology teacher, in 1903, and had four children between 1907–1915: Herbert, Richard, Hilda, and Ernest. In her parenting books, she said that children do not have any

moral A moral (from Latin ''morālis'') is a message that is conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader, or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim. ...

actions, so parents should permit actions to help them grow in their individual expression. Gruenberg rejected what she saw as "arbitrary

puritanism The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to rid the Church of England of what they considered to be Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should ...

" in American parenting, saying that strict parents suggest "every desire and impulse of being Satanic." On behalf of

Macy's Macy's is an American department store chain founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. The first store was located in Manhattan on Sixth Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets, south of the present-day flagship store at Herald Square on West 34 ...

, she lectured at an exposition on "why children should have

toys A toy or plaything is an object that is used primarily to provide entertainment. Simple examples include toy blocks, board games, and dolls. Toys are often designed for use by children, although many are designed specifically for adults and ...

" in 1928.

References

External links

*
Sidonie Gruenberg
in ''Notable American Women'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Gruenberg, Sidonie 1881 births 1974 deaths American family and parenting writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American women writers American women non-fiction writers