I was married at twenty-eight in utter ignorance of the things that
most vitally affect a wife and mother. My mother, a dear, pious soul,
thought ignorance was innocence, and the only thing I remember her
saying on the subject of childbirth was, “God never sends a babe
without bread to feed it.” Dame Experience long ago knocked the bottom
out of that argument for me. My husband was a man earning 32s. a
week--a conscientious, good man, but utterly undomesticated. A year
after our marriage the first baby was born, naturally and with little
pain or trouble. I had every care, and motherhood stirred the depths
of my nature. The rapture of a babe in arms drawing nourishment from
me crowned me with glory and sanctity and honour. Alas! the doctor
who attended me suffered from eczema of a very bad type in his hands.
The disease attacked me, and in twenty-four hours I was covered from
head to foot ... finally leaving me partially and sometimes totally
crippled in my hands. Fifteen months later a second baby came--a dear
little girl, and again I was in a fairly good condition physically
and financially, but had incurred heavy doctor’s bills and attendance
bills, due to my incapacity for work owing to eczema. Both the children
were delicate, and dietary expenses ran high. Believing that true
thrift is wise expenditure, we spent our all trying to build up for
them sound, healthy bodies, and was ill-prepared financially and
physically to meet the birth of a third baby sixteen months later.
Motherhood ceased to be a crown of glory, and became a fearsome
thing to be shunned and feared. The only way to meet our increased
expenditure was by dropping an endowment policy, and losing all
our little, hard-earned savings. I confess without shame that when
well-meaning friends said: “You cannot afford another baby; take this
drug,” I took their strong concoctions to purge me of the little life
that might be mine. They failed, as such things generally do, and the
third baby came. Many a time I have sat in daddy’s big chair, a baby
two and a half years old at my back, one sixteen months and one one
month on my knees, and cried for very weariness and hopelessness. I
fed them all as long as I could, but I was too harassed, domestic
duties too heavy, and the income too limited to furnish me with a
rich nourishing milk.... Nine months later I was again pregnant, and
the second child fell ill. “She cannot live,” the doctors said, but I
loved.... She is still delicate, but bright and intelligent. I watched
by her couch three weeks, snatching her sleeping moments to fulfil the
household task. The strain was fearful, and one night I felt I must
sleep or die--I didn’t much care which; and I lay down by her side, and
slept, and slept, and slept, forgetful of temperatures, nourishment or
anything else.... A miscarriage followed in consequence of the strain,
and doctor’s bills grew like mushrooms. The physical pain from the
eczema, and working with raw and bleeding hands, threatened me with
madness. I dare not tell a soul. I dare not even face it for some time,
and then I knew I must fight this battle or go under. Care and rest
would have cured me, but I was too proud for charity, and no other help
was available. You may say mine is an isolated case. It is not. The
sympathy born of suffering brings many mothers to me, just that they
may find a listening ear. I find this mental state is common, and the
root cause is lack of rest and economic strain--economic strain being
the greatest factor for ill of the two.
Working-class women have grown more refined; they desire better homes,
better clothes for themselves and their children, and are far more
self-respecting and less humble than their predecessors. But the strain
to keep up to anything like a decent standard of housing, clothing,
diet, and general appearance, is enough to upset the mental balance of
a Chancellor of the Exchequer. How much more so a struggling pregnant
mother! Preventives are largely used. Race suicide, if you will, is the
policy of the mothers of the future. Who shall blame us?
Two years later a fourth baby came. Varicose veins developed. I thought
they were a necessary complement to childbirth. He was a giant of a boy
and heavy to carry, and I just dragged about the housework, washing and
cleaning until the time of his birth; but I looked forward to that nine
days in bed longingly; to be still and rest was a luxury of luxuries.
Economics became a greater strain than ever now that I had four
children to care for. Dimly conscious of the evils of sweating, instead
of buying cheap ready-made clothes, I fashioned all their little
garments and became a sweated worker myself. The utter monotony of
life, the lack of tone and culture, the drudgery and gradual lowering
of the standard of living consequent upon the rising cost of living,
and increased responsibilities, was converting me into a soulless
drudge and nagging scold. I felt the comradeship between myself and
husband was breaking up. He could not enter into my domestic, I would
not enter into his intellectual pursuits, and again I had to fight
or go under. I could give no time to mental culture or reading and I
bought Stead’s penny editions of literary masters, and used to put them
on a shelf in front of me washing-day, fastened back their pages with a
clothes-peg, and learned pages of Whittier, Lowell, and Longfellow, as
I mechanically rubbed the dirty clothes, and thus wrought my education.
This served a useful purpose; my children used to be sent off to sleep
by reciting what I had learnt during the day. My mental outlook was
widened, and once again I stood a comrade and helpmeet by my husband’s
side, and my children all have a love for good literature.
Three years later a fifth baby came. I was ill and tired, but my
husband fell ill a month prior to his birth, and I was up day and
night. Our doctor was, and is, one of the kindest men I have ever met.
I said: “Doctor, I cannot afford you for myself, but will you come if
I need?” “I hope you won’t need me, but I’ll come.” I dare not let my
husband in his precarious condition hear a cry of pain from me, and
travail pain cannot always be stifled; and here again the doctor helped
me by giving me a sleeping draught to administer him as soon as I felt
the pangs of childbirth. Hence he slept in one room while I travailed
in the other, and brought forth the loveliest boy that ever gladdened a
mother’s heart. So here I am a woman of forty-one years, blessed with a
lovely family of healthy children, faced with a big deficit, varicose
veins, and an occasional loss of the use of my hands. I want nice
things, but I must pay that debt I owe. I would like nice clothes (I’ve
had three new dresses in fourteen years), but I must not have them yet.
I’d like to develop mentally, but I must stifle that part of my nature
until I have made good the ills of the past, and I am doing it slowly
and surely, and my heart grows lighter, and will grow lighter still
when I know that the burden is lifted from the mothers of our race.
_Wages 32s. to 40s.; five children, one miscarriage._