be speculated that Christianity increased the "emotional bonds" between parents and children, although this conclusion awaits more hard evidence. (Wood, 2005, p. 37)
             So, to some degree the conception of children was as a protectorate it was wholly different than the modern conception of to some degree an inculpable social being unable to yet make decisions about his or her moral obligations and unable to completely protect him or herself form harm.
             As the middle class developed and American life began to produce a society where children to some degree could be protected from hard labor and exploitation the development of childhood ensued, as a situation of age that was afforded a different set of rules to other periods of life. It is also clear that the defining factors of childhood change considerably over different periods of time as do the conceptions of child abuse and maltreatment. (Kellman, 2005, p. 81)
             Child maltreatment is also a concept that has evolved over time, and this is especially true with regard to the definitions in a legal sense and the afforded interventions that are offered to society as a whole when these new definitions are breeched. Just like any other recently designated social problem the phenomena of child maltreatment though it has existed for all of human history took a significant amount of time to be defined in the manner it is today.
             As Rose (1957) has noted, a collective interpretation process must occur before any given pattern of activity is singled out and defined as a social problem. As with any other "social object" ( Mead, 1934), critical to this process is the emergence of a label or phrase symbolically representing the object and connoting an attitude regarding it. In the case of a social problem, the attitude must be one of concern. Further, the object must be acknowledged as a public as opposed to a private concern, as a problem of major importance and urgency, and as a problem that ...