Well, there were regional differences. In England, from at least the late middle ages it was the custom at all levels of the social hierarchy for parents to send their children (both boys & girls) out from a young age to be educated/trained by others: in the aristocracy they became pages & maids-in-waiting, in the trades they became apprentices, and in the farming classes they became farm servants. This practice was remarked on by visitors form the Continent as a sure sign that the English didn't love their children. But the English regarded it as the opposite, the theory being that they would treat their own children too softly and let them grow up lazy & ignorant, while they wouldn't be as indulgent with someone else's, and the practice persisted as an English peculiarity for many centuries. (Though eventually young gentlemen were sent away not to other households but to schools.)
