As a contributory cause of excessive mortality and sickness among young
children, the employment of mothers away from their homes is even more
important. There is no longer any serious dispute upon that point,
though twenty-five years ago it was the subject of a good deal of
vigorous controversy on both sides of the Atlantic.[28] Professor Jevons
thoroughly established his claim that the employment of mothers and the
ensuing neglect of their infants is a serious cause of infantile
mortality and disease. So important did he consider the question to be
that he strenuously advocated the enactment of legislation forbidding
the employment of mothers until their youngest children were at least
three years old.[29] When one who is familiar with the facts considers
all that the employment of mothers involves, it is difficult to imagine
how its evil effects upon the children could ever have been questioned.
In too many cases the toil continues through the most critical periods
of pregnancy; the infants are weaned early in order that the mother may
return to her employment, and placed in charge of some other
person—often a mere child, inexperienced and ignorant. These “little
mothers” have been much praised and idealized until we have become prone
to forget that their very existence is a great social menace and crime.
It is true that many of them show a wonderful amount of courage and
precocity in dealing with the babies intrusted to their care. But in
praising these qualities we must not forget that they are still
children, necessarily unfitted for the responsibilities thus placed upon
them. Moreover, they themselves are the victims of a great social crime
when their childhood is taken away and the cares of life which belong to
grown men and women are thrust upon them.
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