History of the monster under the bed

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The History Of That Monster Under The Bed



What is the monster under the bed?

If you have children, there’s a good chance you’ve had to deal with issues surrounding the scary monsters under the bed. You may even remember fearing said monster when you were younger. The monster under the bed is a fear for many children, and is now so synonymous with childhood that it has carved a strong niche in popular culture. We take a look at where the concept came from and speak to child psychologist Dr Laura Kauffman about why it’s such a cause of fear for children.


History of the monster under the bed

The scary monsters under the bed is a variation of the bogeyman which has existed for centuries, in various guises, all around the world. It is likely that the bogeyman legend originated simply as a behaviour deterrent for children. For example, if a child doesn’t go to bed then they might be told that the bogeyman will ‘get them’. Not exactly grade-A parenting, but a common technique nonetheless, and one that is no doubt still used.

You might be surprised at just how many countries and cultures have their own iteration of the bogeyman, some of which are incredibly inventive and really quite scary. Many Latin countries have the Sack Man, who takes misbehaving children away in a sack. France has le croquet-mitaine (the hand-cruncher), and Belgium has Ode Roge Oden which translates as ‘Old Red Eyes.’

Why are children afraid?

The world is a scary place for children, absolutely everything they see and hear is new at one point and they have to learn whether it poses a threat or not. Part of that frame of reference comes from a child’s parents. If the child is told something is scary, they will likely believe it.

Fear of monsters under the bed, similar to nightmares, start between four and five years old as a child’s imagination becomes more vivid and they start to understand more abstract concepts, such as fear, but still have trouble distinguishing fact from fantasy.

Dr Kauffman believes this fear comes from a lack of understanding of the world around them and their quickly-expanding imagination:

Is it an evolutionary issue?

There is a theory that suggests that the bogeyman and monster under the bed are (or were) very real indeed and that our fear is a natural evolution toward this threat. The theory belongs to Peter Gray, professor of psychology at Boston University, and comes from our hunter-gatherer days where children would fear bedtime because of the threat of wild animals. If you buy into this theory, these predators are the origins of our bogeyman.

Professor Gray says that we now have an evolutionary mismatch, where factors that shaped our behaviour thousands of years ago no longer apply to the modern day environment.


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