Over-exertion during pregnancy is almost as hurtful as indolence,
depriving the unborn of those vital forces necessary to a
well-constituted existence.
In no country called civilized does the pregnant woman overtax her
strength as she does in these United States. This fact is quite
sufficient to account for the very general want of robustness, vigor,
and firm health, especially among our women. I refer here principally
to our farmers’ and mechanics’ wives.
The farmer’s brood mare is carefully considered. She is exercised
gently lest her progeny suffer deterioration. But the farmer’s wife,
the mother of _his_ progeny, who are to do him honor by their virtues,
or cast reproach upon him by their mediocrity or vices, is over-worked
every day of each of the nine months of each period that is to decide
his case.
When the mare has performed the labor that is good for her, she is
turned into the sunny pasture for the rest of the day. But there is
no considerate arrangement for the wife’s walking in green meadows to
drink in the beauties of nature, and absorb the invigorating sunlight
when she has had as much exercise as is good for her. She cooks and
scours, washes and irons, makes and mends, churns, quilts, makes
preserves, pickles, rag mats, washes dishes three times a day, saves
and contrives (than which nothing is so wearing on the mind), attends
the meetings of her religious society, helping at their fairs and
socials; it is probable she takes a boarder or two in the summer, keeps
up a limited correspondence with her family, and goes to bed every
night so exhausted of her forces, that sleep has to be waited for,
rising unrested to begin over again the dreary daily routine.
You say she has wonderful energy and ability. But why does she not give
her children the benefit of her ambition and faculty? She put all the
vitality, all the magnetism that belonged to her little daughter, into
the kettles and pans, into the soap and butter. The butter may sell
well in the market, but it will not atone for the absence of resource
in her child.
Her boys are slow to apprehend, and will never aspire beyond the three
R’s. They lounge instead of sitting, and walk without dignity.
The girls lack stamina, and have not their mother’s ambition to “put
the work through.” Poor things! They do not know that they were born
tired, or they would offer that as an excuse. They are lacking in the
magnetism that attracts, in the hopefulness and health that makes every
day a satisfaction.
If the husband, on his farm, or in his factory, or store, has extra
or increasing work, he forthwith hires more help; but as child after
child add to the responsibilities and labors of the home, the mother
struggles on unassisted, until at last she becomes a hopeless invalid,
or sinks at middle age under her burdens, leaving her husband with his
accumulated means to marry a younger woman, who sits in the parlor,
hires plenty of servants--now considered quite necessary--and has a
good time generally, on the savings of her predecessor.
It is the conscientious, self-sacrificing woman who thus wears her life
out so unnecessarily. She thinks it _her duty_. Her husband’s labor has
_profits_ attending it--hers, none. Most fatal mistake! Her maternal
office was her first and highest. If she filled that well, she did a
more important and profitable work than any that could fall to her
husband. And it is plain enough that when such domestic services as
hers have to be _hired_, they have a very decided money value.
As an illustration[1] of the dangers of over-work, I will cite the
case of a boy born of well-to-do parents in ---- County, Kentucky.
There were several children older and one younger than the lad in
question. This youngest boy had a brain of the very best calibre.
Talent, latent energy, and determination were written in every line of
the child’s face. “He has the will of a Napoleon,” said his father, and
this was true.
[1] This and other illustrations are with the names of persons
and places simply changed.
The brother of whom I would speak was five years the senior of master
Jefferson, a boy with a very large head, lack-lustre eyes, and a
mixture of amiability and apathy in his air and manner. He relished
neither work, or study, or play. I boarded in the family, and had ample
opportunity for exact observation of the very different characters
composing it. The parents were unusually rugged and hearty, and the
children, with this one exception, took after them.
When, by careful steps, I led the mother back to the summer preceding
dull Charley’s birth, she was able to recall quite vividly the
circumstances that had surrounded her, and the kind of life she led.
“Had she,” I asked, “been unhappy?”
“Oh, dear no; she had had nothing to be unhappy about.”
“Was she sick during any part of her pregnancy? Had she felt her
condition a greater tax on her powers than was usual with her?”
“No; on the contrary, she had been filled with ambition.”
Her husband’s mother was making her first visit with them, and she
was anxious to prove to her how good and “smart” a woman her son had
married. Business had taken her husband away from home (he was a horse
and cattle trader, and was often absent months at a time), and she had
desired to surprise him on his return by all she had accomplished.
“Why, you would hardly believe it if I should tell you all I compassed
that summer before Charley was born. I wove a whole piece of butternut,
and made my husband a complete suit--a new one for Johnny, too. I put
up sweet pickles, and preserves, and apple butter enough to last more
than a year. We only had Aunt ’Liza and that lazy, fat Tish in the
kitchen, and Jake for out-doors, and Aunt ’Liza wasn’t much account
that summer, for she had her little Ben a month before Charley came.
But nothing seemed to trouble me. Husband wrote that he was doing right
well, and every time put in some nice words for me, and how he longed
to see us all. So I worked and worked. I remember how tired I was when
night came. I was always accounted a sound sleeper, but that summer I
_could not sleep_. I heard the big clock in the entry strike one and
two half the time.”
Here, you see, the mother’s activity gave the large head, while what
should have filled it with compact brain went into the butternut and
preserves.
* * * * *
I have known women stand at the ironing-table ready to drop with
fatigue, while they smoothed out the last crease from the kitchen towel.
It is a growing custom to embroider under-garments, night-dresses, etc.
Such work is extremely fascinating, and women who can not afford to
purchase it, will often allow themselves to stitch far into the night.
This tends to make a child narrow-chested and short-sighted, and is
unfavorable to good looks, and the embroidered garments do not make it
as attractive as would a serene and sunny disposition. Grace is said
to depend on excess of power. Insufficiency of power precludes this
quality, which is even more fascinating than beauty itself.
* * * * *
There are, unfortunately, among all classes, women who can not, or do
not, extend their thoughts beyond the trimming on their skirts, or the
last small scandal. Alas! for the high-minded, true-hearted man who
unites his destiny with one of these. Her aims are paltry, and his fine
traits in her keeping are changed to littleness. She clings to her
petty interests, and he can no more inspire her with larger views than
he can mould a marble image. She represents _herself_ in her children.
His descendants through her progress backward, and he is obliged to
admit that woman has the greater power in the formation of character.
* * * * *
After what has been said it will be seen that no greater mistake can
be made than for a mother, while creating immortals, to drudge and
scrimp for the sake of being some day well, or better off. While she
has thus slaved, sparing herself no restful hours in which to enjoy the
beauty of flower or field, in which to contemplate a beautiful face or
graceful figure in real life or picture, in which to enjoy music or
the creations of genius in literature, she has fixed irrevocably for
this world the unsatisfactory status of her children who will so poorly
adorn the new house when it is one day built.
There is a ministry without us visible and invisible, and angels find
it difficult to approach with gifts the mother absorbed by household
drudgery.