My husband is a non-smoker and total abstainer, so you will know no
money was spent in waste. But I feel sure my first baby was still-born
through hard work and lifting. The money brought in not being
sufficient to keep us all, I went out to work, and looked after my
husband and step-children as well.
I feel sure it is not so much lack of knowledge as lack of means that
entails so much suffering. I endured agonies when carrying my second
child, through bad varicose veins in legs and body, but of course
still had to plod on and look after the rest. I had knowledge of what
to eat to produce milk, etc., but could only confine myself to cocoa
and oatmeal, which I often felt sick at the sight of, but could afford
nothing else, as I made these things for the rest of the family also.
I at the second confinement produced a fine boy, 9-1/2 pounds in
weight. He is now eight, and is still a very fine boy. The medical
officer, when examining him, passed a very pointed remark, saying:
“He is, of course, an only child,” and I often feel thankful he is.
We live in quite a poor house, 7s. 6d. weekly rent, but to do justice
to my grown-up step-children, so that they may live up to standard
required of by their work, I cannot afford to have any more children,
also I cannot face the awful agonies a woman has to go through in
looking after a family (there are five of us in the home now) whilst
child-bearing. When I had my boy I had to do the family washing in the
third week after confinement. As to taking care, no working woman can
do that unless absolutely obliged to. The best thing that could happen
would be a system of State Maternity Homes, where working women could
go for a reasonable fee and be confined, and stay for convalescence
(not a workhouse system). There is no peace for the wife at home. She
is still the head and chancellor of the exchequer. If she were confined
on Friday, she would still have to plan and lay out the Saturday money,
and if it did not stretch far enough, she would be the one to go short
or do the worrying. I am sure if we, as a Guild, could bring this
about, a lot of women’s worry would be over. At the same time it would
be a recognition of the importance of our women as race-bearers, and
lift her to a higher plane than at present.
My husband’s highest wages during the time you ask were 36s., lowest
24s., but in his trade wet weather and frosty weather means no work,
and in addition no pay during slack times.
There is one thing--as to mechanical prevention of family. I know it is
a delicate subject, but it is an urgent one, as it is due to low-paid
wages and the unearthly struggle to live respectably. All the beautiful
in motherhood is very nice if one has plenty to bring up a family on,
but what real mother is going to bring a life into the world to be
pushed into the drudgery of the world at the earliest possible moment
because of the strain on the family exchequer.
I was much struck with the remarks of “Kitchener’s” boys who have
been billeted on me, about my boy. He is only nine, and they said
he was as big as the general run of lads in the North when they are
thirteen--“But then, ma, you’ve only one to keep which is different to
seven or eight.”
There is nothing that is done can ever be too much if we are to have
going a race in the future worthy of England, but it will not be until
the nation wakes up to the needs of the mothers of that future race.
_Wages 24s. to 36s.; one child, one still-birth, one miscarriage._