You know, babies born into noble families were mostly raised entirely by wet nurses, separated from their mothers and not even breastfed, so that their mothers could return to their fertile period more quickly. Parents usually had little contact with their children during infancy; they only made brief visits each day. There was even a separate area where the children were kept, away from the rest of the household. I have to assume that Sephiroth raised his children that way
In contrast, there were poorer families who raised their children as best they could (though this also happened in more progressive families, as it helped the children to socialise, etc.), where the children were integrated into the family circle, the babies were cared for and breastfed by their mothers, and they even slept in the same room (I have no idea about sharing the same bed, since back then it wasn’t recommended for fear that parents might roll over and crush the baby while sleeping) and were basically cared for by their mother for as long as necessary. I guess that’s how Cloud and Zack raised their children
That clash of parenting between Sephiroth and Cloud must have been fuuun
Sephiroth strange to see Cloud carrying Hope all the time and refusing help from the nurses and everyone else, asking him if it’s really necessary for the baby to be with him all the time
That's actually what I was getting at in the first bit of the previous ask (I just didn't too much want to derail the ask into child-rearing practices seeing the ask itself was about the romantic approaches to Zack and Sephiroth).
If you go poor enough the entire family is just sleeping in one bed. Meanwhile you get rich enough and even the spouses are sleeping in separate bedrooms (something I'm sure Zack and Cloud probably were using the second bedroom as a storage room and meanwhile Cloud is kind of glad to have when he first marries Sephiroth).
When I say Zack and Cloud were more hands-on parents with their kids I'm not saying that there was no staff involved at all - they were also running a Castle and the surrounding lands. Having someone else around to look after the twin 2-year olds is kind of useful in that situation when you need to be in a long meeting about taxes. But honestly the two of them would probably prefer to be with the 2-year olds than the tax meeting and as much as they could they did have the kids with them and would always have their meals with them and things like that.
Which like, side thing generally - both Cloud and Zack would much prefer to be out cleaning out the Chocobo stalls than being in the Formal Social Moments of their roles. There has definitively been many "if I have to you have to" exchanges they had over the years about dealing with some visiting noble and their wife.
Sephiroth definitively tried to somewhat pressure Cloud into handing Hope over to wet-nurses and Cloud just refused. He's perfectly capable of nursing, doesn't have any supply issues (as evidenced by the 2 previous sets of twins he successfully solo-nursed), having someone else feed his baby (and by extension neglect their own baby) feels wasteful and lazy to him. Meanwhile for Sephiroth Cloud nursing their kid is 'below' their place in the social hierarchy. Sephiroth also absolutely lost that fight.
It's definitively an interesting period from the moment of the marriage. Because there is now three sets of kids in that House - Cloud and Zack's kids (used to being with their parents as much as possible), Angeal and Genesis' kids (used to Angeal being around as much as possible but Genesis being more the traditional 'nobility' child raising practices) and Sephiroth's (very used to the traditional 'nobility' child raising practices). I actually feel a bit sorry for the staff - Cloud keeps just showing up to the children's quarters to be with the kids (possibly hiding from his actual duties) or just taking the kids with him without asking (because those are his kids, and he is still hiding from his actual duties).
